Skeptical Linguistic Essays

“<1> A broader category of questions has to do with the 'internalist' conception of language adopted in this discussion, and in the line of inquiry from which it derives for the past 40 years, a branch of what has been called 'biolinguistics. ' <2> FL (= faculty of language: PMP) is considered to be a subcomponent of Jones's mind/brain; Jones's (I -) language L is the state of his FL, which he puts to use in various ways. <3> We study these objects more or less as we study the system of motor organization or visual perception, or the immune or digestive systems. <4> It is hard to imagine an approach to language that does not adopt such conceptions, at least tacitly. <5> So we discover, I think, even when it is strenuously denied, but I will not pursue the matter here. <6> Internalist biolinguistic inquiry does not, of course, question the legitimacy of other approaches to language, any more than internalist inquiry into bee communication in