The Abstract Nature of Syntactic Representations: Consequences for a Theory of Learning

Introduction The modern study of syntax begins with the observation that people can produce and understand sentences that they have never heard before (Chomsky 1957). From this observation, we conclude that linguistic knowledge must be in the form of a generative symbol system. The term generative, in this context, refers to the property that a finite number of symbols describes a potentially infinite set of sentences. When someone knows a language he possesses a system of mental representations and computations that allows for the generation of an unbounded number of novel expressions. Of course, not any novel arrangement of words counts as a sentence and so the system must be constrained to distinguish the possible from the impossible. In short, syntactic knowledge consists of a system of rules and representations that allows for the generation of all and only the sentences that are possible in a given language.