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Part of
Essays on Linguistic Realism
Edited by Christina Behme and Martin Neef
[Studies in Language Companion Series 196] 2018
► pp. 139–184

Chapter 6
Languages and other abstract structures

| University of Cape Town

My aim in this chapter is to extend the Realist account of the foundations of linguistics offered by Postal, Katz and others. I first argue against the idea that naive Platonism can capture the necessary requirements on what I call a ‘mixed realist’ view of linguistics, which takes aspects of Platonism, Nominalism and Mentalism into consideration. I then advocate three desiderata for an appropriate ‘mixed realist’ account of linguistic ontology and foundations, namely (1) linguistic creativity and infinity, (2) linguistics as a theory of types (and not tokens) and (3) independence but structural respect between language and the linguistic competence thereof. My own brand of mixed realism, what I call ante rem realism, is defended along the lines of an ante rem or non-eliminative structuralism, the likes of which has been offered for mathematics by Resnik (1997) and Shapiro (1997). In other words, grammars describe a mind-independent (but not necessarily unconnected) linguistic reality in terms of linguistic patterns or structures also known as natural languages. I further amend this picture to allow for the possibility of a naturalistic account of language acquisition and evolution by arguing against a particular view of the type-token distinction.

Keywords: foundations of linguistics, ontology, linguistic realism, Platonism, philosophy of mathematics
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Three desiderata for Mixed Realism
    • 2.1Linguistic creativity and infinity
      • 2.1.1Creativity
      • 2.1.2Rule-following and infinity
    • 2.2Of tokens and types
    • 2.3Mixed Realism and respect
    • 2.4Taking stock
      • 2.4.1Mixed Realism and Modified Realism
  • 3.Against Platonism
    • 3.1The right kind of ‘wrong view’
    • 3.2Benacerraf’s dilemma and respect
    • 3.3Conceptual distinctness
  • 4. Ante Rem realism and the foundations of linguistics
    • 4.1Mathematical structuralism
    • 4.2Linguistic structures
    • 4.3Natural types
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 26 July 2018
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https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.196.06nef
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