Chomsky's Universal Grammar Theory

Platonism is the view that abstract objects exist outside of the physical realm. These objects are non-physical and non-mental, and do not exist in space or time.

Katz thinks Chomsky is in camp 2, while Katz himself is in camp 3.

Platonist linguistics is based on linguistic intuitions of speakers, whereas other frameworks prioritize the collection of actual performance data.

The problem of the casual interaction between the physical and non-physical realms, also known as the mind-body problem.

Mathematics and logic.

Because Katz is a Platonist and assumes that Chomskyan linguistics is the correct approach.

Representations are messages sent from a producer to one or more consumers.

The representations must correspond to certain external states in a systematic way.

Conventions that are not tied to specific groups but are patterns of activities reproduced and proliferated due to tradition.

To aid in communication and understanding between speakers and hearers.

They are arbitrary and conditional, not rules.

Replicating language forms, which can occur unconsciously and indirectly.

to support linguistic conventions, and these conventions have an essentially communicative function

as a sprawling mass of overlapping and crisscrossing linguistic conventions that are reproduced and proliferated through tradition

an analogy with how we classify biological species

that words can be seen as forming lineages or evolving over time, similar to biological species

to achieve a common goal through the contributions of multiple participants

the contribution of each participant depends crucially on the contributions made by the other(s)

All languages hold similar structures and rules, and there are formal universals and principles in common with specific options and limits for variation in grammar and features between languages.

Language is a state of the language faculty, a learned state of an individual's brain that generates the rules of their language.

I-Language refers to the internal cognitive structures and mechanisms that underlie an individual's linguistic competence, while E-Language refers to the observable instances of language use in social interactions and communication.

Language competence refers to the internalized knowledge of language, which encompasses the mental representations and rules that govern language use and understanding.

The theory of Universal Grammar proposes that the ability to learn grammar is hard-wired into the brain, and that all languages possess the same set of categories and relations.

The Poverty of Stimulus argument is that the linguistic input received by young children is insufficient to explain their detailed knowledge of their first language, and therefore people must be born with an innate ability to learn a language.

Acquiring a language refers to the process of innate knowledge of language, while learning a language refers to the process of receiving linguistic input from the environment.

The rationalist response is that human children have innate knowledge of language, such as universal grammar, with which they are born.

I-Language is significant because it refers to the internal cognitive structures and mechanisms that underlie an individual's linguistic competence, and is innate and specific to each individual.

The goal of linguistics is to study the internal cognitive structures and mechanisms that underlie an individual's linguistic competence, with the hope of mapping this to the brain.

tracing their lineages and histories of reproduction

supporting effective communication between speakers and hearers

enabling the proliferation of communicative language conventions

it is what makes a word the same word, regardless of its physical or acoustic form

words can change properties over time and still be the same words, like species

both the settings of an I-language from UG and conventions that have been sustained in the community over generations