Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T12:12:40.592Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

2 - What Is a Possible Human Language?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 April 2024

Ryan M. Nefdt
Affiliation:
University of Cape Town
Get access

Summary

In this chapter, the central philosophical pursuit of theoretical linguistics is recentred around the issue of what makes a language a possibly human or natural one. Thus, instead of discussing the old immovable debates concerning the ontology of language in terms of nominalism, mentalism, and platonism, we move the discussion to modal metaphysics. However, this isn’t an exercise in abstract a priori reasoning. The space of possibilities are deeply constrained by current linguistic theory. Besides proffering a novel conception of language and linguistic possibility, the concepts of ‘naturalness’ in philosophy, ‘learnability’ in generative linguistics, and ‘communication’ in the philosophy of language are discussed. The idea is that linguistic possibility or possible languages, like possible worlds, can be defined in terms of accessibility relations from actual languages based on their learnability, use as communicative devices, and a number of other possible constraints. Lastly, the chapter critiques some influential experimental work in neurolinguistics on the notion of impossible languages, which rely more heavily on generative biolinguistics. These experiments, although interesting, don’t show what they intend to. Linguistic impossibility is best derived from its possibility through the method presented in the chapter.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Philosophy of Theoretical Linguistics
A Contemporary Outlook
, pp. 23 - 49
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×