Skip to main content
Log in

Some Core Contested Concepts

  • Published:
Journal of Psycholinguistic Research Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Core concepts of language are highly contested. In some cases this is legitimate: real empirical and conceptual issues arise. In other cases, it seems that controversies are based on misunderstanding. A number of crucial cases are reviewed, and an approach to language is outlined that appears to have strong conceptual and empirical motivation, and to lead to conclusions about a number of significant issues that differ from some conventional beliefs.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Baron-Cohen, S., Leslie, A. M., & Frith, U. (1985). Does the autistic child have a “theory of mind”? Cognition, 21(1), 37–46.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Berlin, B., & Kay, P. (1969). Basic color terms: Their universality and evolution. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Berwick, Robert C., Chomsky, N., & Piattelli-Palmarini, M. (2012). Poverty of the stimulus stands: Why recent challenges fail. In M. Piattelli-Palmarini & R. C. Berwick (Eds.), Rich languages from poor inputs. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Berwick, R., Pietroski, P., Yankama, B., & Chomsky. N. (2011). Poverty of the Stimulus Revisited. Cognitive Science, 35, 1207–1242.

  • Bloomfield, L. (1926). A set of postulates for the science of language, Language 2.3. Republished as chapter B21 in C. F. Hockett (Ed.), A Leonard Bloomfield anthology (pp. 153–164). Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.

  • Chomsky, N. (1965). Aspects of the theory of syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chomsky, N. (1986). Knowledge of language. New York: Praeger.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chomsky, N. (1995). The minimalist program. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chomsky, N. (1998). Minimalist inquiries: The framework. MIT working papers in linguistics, 27–32. Reprinted. In: R. Martin, D. Michaels, & J. Uriagereka (Eds.), Step by step: Essays on minimalist syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik (pp. 89–155). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press (2000).

  • Chomsky, N. (2001). Derivation by phase. In M. Kenstowicz (Ed.), Ken hale: A life in language (pp. 1–52). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chomsky, N. (2008). On phases. In: R. Freidin, C. P. Otero, & M. L. Zubizarreta (Eds.), Foundational issues in linguistic theory. Essays in honor of Jean-Roger Vergnaud (pp. 133–166). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

  • Chomsky, N. (2013). Problems of projection. Lingua, 130(June), 33–49.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Clayton, N., Emery, N., & Dickinson, A. (2006). The rationality of animal memory: Complex caching strategies of western scrub jays. In M. Nuuds & S. Hurley (Eds.), Rational animals? (pp. 197–216). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Enfield, N. J. (2010). Without social context? (a review of W. Tecumseh Fitch’s the evolution of language). Science, 329, 1600–1601.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Franklin, A., Giannakidou, A., & Goldin-Meadow, S. (2011). Negation, questions, and structure building in a homesign system. Cognition, 118(3), 398–416. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2010.08.017.

    Article  PubMed Central  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Gallistel, C. R., & King, A. P. (2011). Memory and the computational brain: Why cognitive science will transform neuroscience. New York: Wiley-Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goldin-Meadow, S. (2005). Watching language grow. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 102(7), 2271–2272.

    Article  PubMed Central  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Greenberg, J. H. (Ed.). (1966). Universals of language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

  • Hale, K. (1973). Deep-structure canonical disparities in relation to analysis and change: An Australian example. In Thomas Sebeok (Ed.), Diachronic, areal, and typological linguistics (pp. 401–458). The Hague and Paris: Mouton.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hale, K. (1975). Gaps in grammar and culture. In: C. F. Voegelin, M. D. Kinkade, K. L. Hale, & O. Werner (Eds.), In Linguistics and anthropology: in honor of C.f. Voegelin (pp. 295–316). Ghent, Belgium: Peter de Ridder/John Benjamins.

  • Kam, X. N., Stoyneshka, I., Tornyova, L., Fodor, J. D., & Sakas, W. G. (2007). Bigrams and the richness of the stimulus. Cognitive Science, 32(4), 771–787.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Miller, G. A. (1956). The magical number seven, plus or minus two: Some limits on our capacity for processing information. Psychological Review, 63(2), 81–97.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Moro, A. (2000). Dynamic antisymmetry. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Moro, A. (2013). The equilibrium of human syntax: Symmetries in the brain. Abingdon, UK, and New York, NY: Routledge/Taylor and Francis.

    Google Scholar 

  • Musso, M., Moro, A., Glauche, V., Rijntjes, M., Reichenbach, J., Büchel, C., et al. (2003). Broca’s area and the language instinct. Nature Neuroscience, 6(7), 774–781.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Neidle, C., Kegl, J., MacLaughlin, D., Bahan, B., & Lee, R. G. (2000). The syntax of American sign language: Functional categories and hierarchical structure. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Polinsky, M. (2013). Raising and control. In M. den Dikken (Ed.), The Cambridge handbook of generative syntax. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2013.

    Google Scholar 

  • Quine, W. V. O. (1960). Translation and meaning. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Quine, W. V. O. (1970). Methodological reflections on modern linguistic theory. Synthese, 21, 386–98.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rizzi, L. (2010). On some properties of criterial freezing. In E. P. Panagiotidis (Ed.), The complementizer phrase (pp. 17–32). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Rizzi, L. (2014). Cartography, criteria, and labeling. University of Geneva, University of Siena.

  • Rosch, E. (1973). Natural categories. Cognitive Psychology, 7, 573–605.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sauerland, U., & Gärtner, H. (Eds.). (2007). Interfaces + recursion = language? Chomsky’s minimalism and the view from syntax-semantics. Berlin: Mouton De Gruyter.

    Google Scholar 

  • Smith, N. V., & Tsimpli, I. (1995). The mind of a savant. New York and Oxford, UK: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Smith, N. V., Tsimpli, I., & Ouhalla, J. (1993). Learning the impossible: The acquisition of possible and impossible languages by a polyglot savant. Lingua, 91, 279–347.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Whitney, W. D. (1873). The science of language. In: Oriental and linguistic studies: First series. New York: Scribner, Armstrong, and Company.

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Noam Chomsky.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Chomsky, N. Some Core Contested Concepts. J Psycholinguist Res 44, 91–104 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-014-9331-5

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-014-9331-5

Keywords

Navigation