Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

The goals of linguistic theory are to answer such questions as “What is language?” and “What properties must something (an organism or a machine) have in order for it to learn and use language?” Different theories provide different answers to these questions, and there is at present no general consensus as to what theory gives the best answers. Moreover, most linguists, when pressed, would say that these questions have not yet been answered satisfactorily by any theory. In order to try to answer these questions, one strategy, originally employed by Joseph Greenberg (1963) , is to undertake a comprehensive study of the languages of the world, to determine what properties they have in common and what distinguishes them from things that everyone agrees are not languages. Another, advocated by Noam Chomsky (1980 ), is to examine a few particular languages in depth to determine which of the intricate details that are found in one language turn up in all the others. As each of these approaches is extended, they merge into one another, and can be expected, ultimately, to converge on the same answer. Although we do not yet know enough to provide a definitive answer to the question “What is language?”, what we do know enables us to say with certainty that every language is a system with sufficient resources for communicating its speakers' intentions, desires, and beliefs, no matter how ... log in or subscribe to read full text