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Substance-based Grammar – The (Ongoing) Work of John Anderson
Edited by Roger Böhm and Harry van der Hulst
[Studies in Language Companion Series 204] 2018
► pp. 365–383

On grounding, internalism, modularity and grammaticalization in phonology

| Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3

The chapter begins with Chomsky’s conception of linguistic knowledge as ‘knowledge without grounds’, and then discusses two different approaches to the grounding of linguistic knowledge: that of Noel Burton-Roberts and that of John Anderson. I adopt Tomasello’s view that the child is not formulating hypotheses, as claimed by Fodor and others, but is undergoing a process of socialisation in acquiring linguistic conventions. I accommodate the Andersonian notion of grammaticalisation with a conception of grammaticalisation as conventionalization. I argue in favour of the idea of grounded phonological knowledge as a form of emergent modularity (as suggested in the work of Karmiloff-Smith), as distinct from innate modularity.

Article outline
  • 1.Knowledge without grounds
  • 2.Andersonian grounding and modularity
  • 3.Phonological knowledge as knowledge of social conventions
    • 3.1Itkonen, autonomism and normativity
    • 3.2Fodor on the LoT and Tomasello on socialisation
  • 4.Emergent modularity
  • 5.On the acquisition of grounded phonological knowledge
  • 6.Concluding remarks: placing Andersonian grounding in a broader context
  • References
Published online: 12 December 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.204.09car
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