The Relevance of Relational Grammar to the Innateness Hypothesis

FAIN: FT-12690-75

Thomas A. Wasow
Stanford University (Stanford, CA 94305-2004)

To examine whether the innate cognitive endowment of humans includes specifically linguistic mechanisms. P.I. argues that grammatical relations play a role in linguistic structure not predictable from their general cognitive function. Project will ultimately give some insight into the organization of human mental structures and the role of linguistics in revealing this organization.