Of Minds and Language (83 page)

  
¹⁵
See also Chomsky (1998). (Editors' note)

  
¹⁶
Miller and Johnson-Laird (1976). (Editors' note)

  
¹⁷
See
Chapter 19.
(Editors' note)

  
¹⁸
See Appel (1987). (Editors' note)

  
¹⁹
The passage quoted is, in its entirety: “The importance of natural selection will not be impaired even if further inquiries should prove that variability is definite, and is determined in certain directions rather than in others, by conditions inherent in that which varies. It is quite conceivable that every species tends to produce varieties of a limited number and kind, and that the effect of natural selection is to favour the development of some of these, while it opposes the development of others along their predetermined lines of modification” (Huxley 1893: 223). See also Gates (1916). Huxley's passage is there quoted on page 128. See also Chomsky (2004b). (Editors' note)

  
²⁰
Rizzi (2003). (Editors' note)

  
²¹
See also Shatz and Gelman (1973). (Editors' note)

  
²²
Jacob (1977). For an insightful reconstruction of those debates see also Jenkins (2000). (Editors' note)

  
²³
See
Chapter 10.
(Editors'note)

  
²⁴
Lewontin (1998). (Editors' note)

  
²⁵
Goodman and Quine (1947).

  
²⁶
See
Chapter 11
.

  
²⁷
Fox and Hacki (2006); Fox (in press).

  
²⁸
Peirce (1982).

  
²⁹
J. A. Fodor (2001).

  
³⁰
Kuhn (1962).

  
³¹
Einstein et al. (1971 (reprinted 2005)).

  
³²
Much in the same vein, Jacques Monod once said to Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini that there had been some early experiments from other laboratories apparently refuting the Monod–Jacob model of genetic regulation (Jacob and Monod 1961), a major breakthrough that won them the Nobel Prize in 1965. Monod confessed he had decided to pay no attention to them, and did not even try to replicate them, because the model was so obviously correct. He assumed, rightly as it turned out, that time would have told what was wrong with those experiments. This is especially noteworthy, because Monod professed to be a convinced Popperian falsificationist. (Editors' note)

  
³³
Nagel, T. (1974).

  
³⁴
Weyl (1989).

  
³⁵
Gehring (2004).

  
³⁶
See Gallistel's contribution,
Chapter 4
.

  
³⁷
ECP stands for Empty Category Principle, a condition designed to account for the syntactic distribution of unpronounced elements of the so-called trace variety. For a discussion of these and related topics, see infra, in Rizzi's presentation (
Chapter 11
). (Editors' note)

  
¹
See
Chapter 5
for Marc Hauser's discussion of the FLB and FLN.

  
²
See pages 155–157 for Luigi Rizzi's discussion of the specificity of Merge. This relates to some of the questions that Randy Gallistel talks about in
Chapter 4
.

  
³
Chomsky now uses Merge to refer to this basic grouping operation (keeping the labeling algorithm separate). Merge in that sense cannot be specific to language, in my opinion.

  
⁴
See below,
Chapter 5
.

  
⁵
Pietroski (in press).

  
⁶
See page 31 above.

  
⁷
See the comments of Jim Higginbotham below (page 143) about generalizations that are “very close to being true.”

  
⁸
Donati (2005).

  
⁹
Higginbotham (1983a).

  
¹⁰
Donati (2005).

  
¹¹
Thomas G. Bever was unable to attend the meeting, but he and Chomsky had been corresponding about these topics for a long time. Bever's updated presentation is published in this volume (
Chapter 18
). (Editors' note)

  
¹²
See also Townsend and Bever (2001).

  
¹³
Bever's contribution (see
Chapter 18
) was written after the San Sebastián conference, also in the light of the present exchange, of which he had read the transcript. (Editors's note)

  
¹
Lipton and Spelke (2003).

  
²
Santos et al. (2002).

  
³
Dechaume-Moncharmont et al. (2005).

  
⁴
Hecht et al. (1942).

  
⁵
Sakitt (1972).

  
¹
See Lila Gleitman's description in
Chapter 16
.

  
²
See
Chapter 4
above.

  
³
See the discussion on pages 64–68.

  
⁴
See also descriptions of similar studies by Lila Gleitman in
Chapter 16
.

  
⁵
Higginbotham (1994).

  
¹
Thompson (1917).

  
²
It is perhaps in this tradition that Massimo stated in his comments on optimal foraging (see Noam Chomsky's summary, page 407): “There are some things you don't need genes for because it's the physics and chemistry of the situation that dictate the solution.”

  
³
See
Chapter 2
.

  
⁴
As Noam suggests, see page 397 below.

  
⁵
See page 398 below.

  
⁶
See page 385 below.

  
⁷
See
Chapter 3
.

  
¹
Two recent classics are: Grewal and Moazed (2003) and Jaenisch and Bird (2003). For a recent exhaustive exposition, see Allis et al. (2006). For short accessible introductions see Gibbs (2003). (Editors' Note)

  
²
Described in Roemer et al. (1997).

  
³
Studied ever since Hiesey et al. (1942).

  
⁴
For an analysis of the history of this notion, see Levit et al. (2006).

  
⁵
See section 6.5 above.

  
⁶
Viviani and Stucchi (1992).

  
⁷
Queltsch et al. (2002).

  
⁸
For a vast panorama, see Schlosser and Wagner (2004).

  
⁹
Craig et al. (1996); Weatherall (1999).

  
¹⁰
See sections 17.6–9 below.

  
¹¹
See Yang (2002).

  
^*
This paper was delivered at the conference by Donata Vercelli.

  
^*
Acknowledgments: I am indebted to Zekeria Mokhtarzada for his collaboration on this work. NIMH Grant MH49867 supported some of the experimental research.

  
¹
Here
I am rather conservative. The distinction between conceptual and intentional information is, in a rather clear sense even if in different terms, part of Government & Binding and Principles & Parameters incarnations of the generative program, by virtue of the existence of D-S and LF levels of representation. “Levels” have now been abolished, but Uriagereka (2008:
Chapter 1
) shows how this distinction can and should be maintained in Minimalism.

  
²
“Good sense is, of all things among men, the most widely distributed; for every one thinks himself so abundantly provided with it, that those even who are the most difficult to satisfy in everything else, do not usually desire a larger measure of this quality than they already possess. And in this it is not likely that all are mistaken: the conviction is rather to be held as testifying that the power of judging aright and of distinguishing truth from error, which is properly what is called good sense or reason, is by nature equal in all men (…).” (Translation from the online Gutenberg edition, see http://www.literature.org/authors/descartes-rene/reason-discourse/index.html.)

  
³
Chomsky offers a similar “internalist-functionalist” kind of explanation for the syntactic duality of external and internal Merge, which again is rationalized by appeal to a supposed property of language-external (independently given or structured) systems of thought, namely the “duality of semantic interpretation”: argument-structure, on the one hand, discourse properties, on the other (Chomsky 2005).

  
⁴
Clearly, such form–meaning correspondences are highly desirable from an acquisition point of view. For syntax to help get meaning into place, it should align and condition it (see in this regard Gleitman et al. 2005, and her contributions to this volume).

  
⁵
Though, interestingly, not a limitless one: thus, in the eight-dimensional algebraic spaces inhabited by special numbers called octonions, standard algebraic operations such as associativity cease to be defined.

  
⁶
For a longer elaboration, see Hinzen (2007b).

  
⁷
[kill Bill] will obviously be interpreted at the semantic interface as a phrase: it will surely neither be interpreted as the lexical item
kill
nor as the lexical item
Bill
. Moreover, the interpretation will depend on which term projects, arguing for the reality of projections. So, something different and new emerges at the phrasal level, which at least shows at the interface. Yet, on the now standard minimalist view, the syntax sees nothing of this, since it either operates with no labels, “loci” (Collins 2002), or projections (Chomsky 2006), or else only operates with labels which are lexical items. These labels
designate
complex sets (phrases), to be sure, but
what
they label has no reality in the syntax. This is precisely why “interface conditions”
need
to rise to such explanatory prominence in the minimalist reformulation (and elimination, effectively; see Chametzky 2003) of phrase structure. It is to Collins's (2002) credit that he entirely embraces this conclusion, affirming that three explanatory factors for syntax suffice:

      (i) interaction of
the properties of lexical items

    (ii) economy conditions

   (iii) interface (“bare output”) conditions.

  
⁸
See Hinzen and Uriagereka (2006) for more on this argumentation.

  
⁹
Perhaps adjuncts
can
be structuralized as specifiers (Cinque 1999) as well, but then only after an extended argument structure system, with the relevant structural relations and a more sophisticated semantics, exists. See Hinzen (2007b) for more discussion.

  
¹⁰
See Hinzen (2006b) and (2007a) on the “reference-relation,” in particular its non-explanatory nature and, probably, non-existence.

  
¹¹
Cinque (1999).

  
^*
This paper develops what Chomsky (2006) has described as a “more radical conception of the FL–CI interface relation.” This is the same position that Uriagereka (2008) identifies as “the radical option” and falls short of endorsing (so there must be something to this judgment …). On the other hand, it is highly inspired by (my understanding of) Uriagereka (1995). I also wish to express my dear thanks to the organizers of the conference for a wonderful event where such ideas could be discussed. I specifically thank Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini, Lila Gleitman, Noam Chomsky, and Jim Higginbotham for discussion.

  
¹
See Higginbotham (2003b).

  
²
Thus the sceptic still continues to reason and believe, even though he asserts, that he cannot defend his reason by reason; and by the same rule he must assent to the principle concerning the existence of body, though he cannot pretend by any arguments of philosophy to maintain its veracity. Nature has not left this to his choice, and has doubtless, esteemed it an affair of too great importance to be trusted to our uncertain reasonings and speculations. We may well ask, What causes induce us to believe in the existence of body?
but it is in vain to ask, Whether there be body or not?
That is a point, which we must take for granted in all our reasonings.

(Part IV, Sect. II. Of Scepticism With Regard to the Senses: emphasis added)

Another relevant passage is:

Motion in one body in all past instances, that have fallen under our observation, is follow'd upon impulse by motion in another. 'Tis impossible for the mind to penetrate further. From this constant union it
forms
the idea of cause and effect, and by its influence
feels
the necessity. As there is some constancy, and the same influence in what we call moral evidence, I ask no more. What remains can only be a dispute of words. (
A Treatise of Human Nature
, 1739. [Longmans and Green reprint 1898: 187. Emphasis is Hume's.) (Editors' note)

  
³
Fodor (1970); Fodor et al. (1980); Fodor and Lepore (2005).

  
⁴
Quine (1985).

  
⁵
Morgenbesser (1956).

  
¹
See various essays published in Belletti (2004), Cinque (2002), Rizzi (2004).