Bunge’s Requirement of Neurological Plausibility for a Linguistic Theory

Abstract

Mario Bunge claimed in many places that core hypotheses of mainstream linguistics have been contrasted with theoretical assumptions, but not with empirical evidence. Bunge’s criticism is not only correct for what was known in the middle-1980s, but it also remains valid today. First of all, the very distinction between “faculty of language in the broad sense” (FLB) and “faculty of language in the narrow sense” (FLN) is inconsistent, because it is sometimes presented as an empirical hypothesis and sometimes as a mere terminological or expository aid. Secondly, the Universal Grammar (UG) hypothesis, in any of its forms, is incompatible with biological evidence. Third, the hypothesis that language is a system capable of performing operations on some kind of objects is incompatible with basic neurological evidence, because it assumes (explicitly or implicitly) that the mind/brain is able to store and manipulate objects.