intention-reading can take place in the absence of language—it is a general human cognitive ability, and one that supports all sorts of behavior, not just linguistic. There is no isolated “language module” that allows linguistic competence to “grow” in the brain as a result of a genetic blueprint. Language is the fruit of both the biological evolut

This “usage-based” theory of language structure doesn’t require us to imagine a UG. It instead posits a universal set of constraints on language use: the need to be clear and expressive, but also efficient. And, as long as they don’t actually impede communication, certain structures will just endure, the baroque overdecoration characteristic of lan

Everyone agrees that language is hierarchical, not linear. But why is it like that? Chomsky believes it is because of Merge: Merge evolved in human brains, and language, as an expression of human cognition, is shaped by Merge as a result. Linguist Geoffrey Sampson has another explanation, one which doesn’t require an appeal to a module in the brain

In other words, structure doesn’t have to be programmed. It can emerge for other reasons. A human example: the vast majority of languages (around 96 percent‡‡) place the subject of a sentence before the object. You could attribute this to UG, saying it’s just how the blueprint is written. Or you could take the view that linguistic sequences are inf

Michael Tomasello, we don’t need to resort to UG to explain that. Instead, there’s a process of “entrenchment”—gradually, the more often they hear a verb used in a certain way, children will opt for that use, and assume that something they haven’t heard isn’t permissible—the no-negative-evidence problem isn’t really a problem at all.

key point is that at the core of all languages lies a special computational trick which Chomskyans say bestows upon them their basic and unique property: the ability to generate an infinity of expressions using finite means. Merge is precisely that which apes, birds, dolphins and every other species lack. It is what enables children to acquire lang

predicate (the name given to the part of the sentence that isn’t the subject, but gives you information relating to it).

Merge is recursive. You’ll remember from Chapter 4 that recursion is the reappearance of something inside itself, and is seen by some as the sine qua non of human language.

Chomsky’s theory went through several incarnations, each, in general, more rigorous and pared back than the previous one.§ The final iteration, known as the “minimalist program,” introduces what Chomsky believes to be the most basic rule of human language, that which ultimately generates all the sentences of all known languages, and which allows a