LANGUAGE AND GENETICS

In this article we give illustrations from syntax and semantics in work in generative grammar which appear to be autonomous among themselves and obey different kinds of conditions on form and function. Their autonomy appears to be not logically necessary, but biologically necessary. We discuss an example (Subjacency Condition) which suggests that such conditions cannot have been learned, but are encoded (indirectly) in the genes. Generative grammars describe this relation abstractly, much like Mendel's laws in classical genetics. As in the case of syntax, the problem in the area of logical form is to determine what aspects of logical form are genetically determined and which aspects are learned. Current research in neurobiology and genetic engineering is briefly reviewed.