mentalism and mechanism in linguistics 深...

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KANAGAWA University Repository

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Title MENTALISM AND MECHANISM IN LINGUISTICS

Author(s) 深澤, 俊昭; FUKAZAWA, Toshiaki

Citation 語学研究, 2: 23-56

Date 1979

Type Departmental Bulletin Paper

Rights publisher

MENTALISM AND MECHANISM

IN LINGUISTICS

Toshiaki FUKAZAWA

CONTENTS

Prefece .............

I. Mechanism-----Bloomfield . .

1.1 Introduction .......

1.2 Stimulas-----Response . .

1.3 Meaning----Form . . . .

1.4 Bloomfield----Weiss . . .

1.5 The Source of Mechanism

2. Mentalism-----Sapir, Chomsky

2.1 Introduction .......

2.2 Sapir ...........

2.3 Chomsky .........

3. Conclusion ..........

Bibliography ..........

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Preface

Linguistics is called a scientific study of language, and in so far

as it is a science it must construct theory. Then what are the aims

of linguistic theory? To answer this we need to consider two con-

flicting approaches in modern linguistics: the mentalistic versus the

mechanistic approach, or the rationalistic approach versus the em-

pirical. Without understanding these two trends in linguistics we

cannot talk about the aims of linguistic theory. In fact the question

of the aims of linguistic theory has come out of the controversy

surrounding the mentalist and mechanist approaches to language

study. Without understanding these views of language (which are

ultimately views of man) which underly various contemporary

24Toshiaki FUKAZAWA

linguistic theories, we cannot understand even

selves. It is with these points in mind that I

of both approaches, mainly through a study of

and Noam Chomsky, in the study to follow.

those theories them-

have made a survey

Leonard Bloomfield

1. Mechanism----Bloomfield

1.1 Introduction

In this chapter we shall be dealing with "mechanism" in Leonard

Bloomfield. It was in his Language in 1933, I think, that the word "mechanist" first appeared in contrast with "mentalist" . In the

Preface to Language he says:

The mentalists would supplement the facts of language by a version in terms of mind,—a version which will differ in the various schools of mentalistic psychology. The mechanists demand that the fact be

presented without any assumption of such auxiliary factors. I have tried to meet this demand not merely because I believe that mechanism is

the necessary form of scientific discourse, but also because an exposi- tion which stands on its own feet is more solid and more easily sur-

veyed than one which is propped at various points by another and changeable doctrine.

It is not too much to say that American structural linguistics

has its origin in this "mechanism". But since we cannot understand

the whole meaning of "mechanism" only from this statement, it is

necessary for us to see what Bloomfield states about this subject in

his other works. We shall make a general survey of this, beginning

with his "Linguistic aspects of science" in 1939, in which we find

the following statement:

It is the belief of the present writer that the scientific description of the universe, whatever this description may be worth, requires

none of the mentalistic terms, because the gaps which these terms are intended to bridge exist only so long as language is left out of account. If language is taken into account, then we can distinguish

science from other phases of human activity by agreeing that science

MENTALISM AND MECHANISM IN LINGUISTICS 25

shall deal only with events that are accessible in their time and place to any and all observers (strict behaviorism) or only with events that are placed in coordinates of time and space (mechanism), or that science shall employ only such initial statements and predictions as lead

to definite handling operations (operationalism); or only terms such as are derivable by rigid definition from a set of everyday terms con-

cerning physical happenings (physicalism). These several formulations, independently reached by different scientists all lead to the same de-

limitation, and this delimitation does not restrict the subject matter of science but rather characterizes its method (Bloomfield, 1939, pp.

90--91).

His intention is therefore not to restrict the subject matter of

science but to characterize its method, that is, not to use the extra-

scientific terms of mentalism.

1.2 Stimulus----Response

Here we shall look into his concrete view of language. Chapter

2 of Bloomfield's (1933) book is entitled "The Use of Language".

In this chapter he gives his well-known illustration of the "Jack

and Jill" paradigm:

Suppose that Jack and Jill are walking down a lane. Jill is hungry. She sees an apple in a tree. She makes noise with her larynx, tongue, and lips. Jack vaults the fence, climbs the tree, takes the apple, brings

it to Jill, and places it in her hand. Jill eats the apple (Bloomfield, 1933, p.22).

This is the normal description of the events that take place.

But Bloomfield (1933, pp. 22-27) explains this somewhat differently. "She was hungry; that is , some of her muscles were contracting,

and some fluids were being secreted, especially in her stomach."

She saw an apple in a tree; that is, "the light-waves reflected from

the red apple struck her eyes." All these events constitute the

stimulus. Further, she "moved her vocal chords... her lower jaw,

her tongue, and so on, in a way which forced the air into the form

of sound-waves." That is, instead of responding directly to this

26Toshiaki FUKAZAWA

stimulus, that is, getting hold of the apple by herself, Jill's speech

acts as a substitute stimulus for Jack, causing him to fetch the

apple.

Thus "the two human ways of responding to a stimulus" are

symbolized by two diagrams:

1. speechless reaction: s------ ) R

2. reaction mediated by speech: S--q-......s----) R.

In the latter case, "the gap between the bodies of the speaker and

the hearer—the discontinuity of the two nervous systems—is bridged

by the sound waves."

Here appear two theories about the variability of human conduct,

that is, "mentalism" and "mechanism".

The mentalistic theory, which is by far the older, and still prevails both in the popular view and among men of science, supposes that the

variability of human conduct is due to the interference of some non-

physical factor, a spirit or will or mind (Greek psyche, hence the term psychology) that is present in every human being. This spirit,

according to the mentalistic view, is entirely different from material things and accordingly follows some other kind of causation or perhaps none at all (Bloomfield, 1933, p. 32).

The materialistic (or, better, mechanistic) theory supposes that the variability of human conduct, including speech, is due only to the fact that the human body is a very complex system. Human actions,

according to the materialistic view, are part of cause-and-effect se- quences exactly like those which we observe, say in the study of physics or chemistry (ibid., p. 33).

As we shall see in due course, the latter statement shows ex-

plicitly a materialistic view of man.

1.3 Meaning----Form

Bloomfield (1933, p. 139) defined "the meaning of a linguistic

form as the situation in which the speaker utters it and the response

which it calls forth in the hearer." This statement means that the

meaning of a linguistic form is "S" and "R" in his diagram "S--4


r...... s-- R". And he says that "S" (speakers situation), "as the

earlier term, will usually present a simpler aspect than the hearer's

response; therefore we usually discuss and define meanings in terms

of a speaker's stimulus."

Concerning "meaning" the theories of "mentalism" and "mecha-

nism" appear. In Language, chapter 9, "Meaning", he explains

both:

Adherents of mentalistic psychology believe that they can avoid the difficulty of defining meanings, because they believe that, prior to

the utterance of a linguistic form, there occurs within the speaker a non-physical process, a thought, concept, image, feeling, act of will

or the like and that the hearer, likewise, upon receiving the sound- waves, goes through an equivalent or correlated mental process. The

mentalist, therefore, can define the meaning of a linguistic form as the characteristic mental event which occurs in every speaker and

hearer in connection with the utterance or hearing of the linguistic form. The speaker who utters the word apple has had a mental

image of an apple, and this word evokes a similar image in a hearer's mind. For the mentalist, language is the expression of ideas. feelings,

or volitions. The mechanist does not accept this solution. He believes that

mental images, feelings, and the like are merely popular terms for various bodily movements... (Bloomfield, 1933, p. 142).

Here we had a considerable understanding of these two theories.

One is idealistic and the other is materialistic. Thus, for the mecha-

nist the "mental processes" are "merely traditional names for bodily

processes" (p. 143).

His absorbing interest in linguistics is to make a science of it.

Bearnard Bloch (1949) explains this in his obituar "Leonard

Bloomfield":

There can be no doubt that Bloomfield's greatest contribution to the study of language was to make a science of it. Others

before him had worked scientifically in linguistics; but no one had so uncompromisingly rejected all prescientific methods, or had been

so consistently careful, in writing about language, to use terms that would imply no tacit reliance on factors beyond the range of

observation. To some readers, unaware of the danger that lies in

28Toshiaki FUKAZAWA

a common-sense view of the world, Bloomfield's avoidance of everyday expressions may have sounded like pedantry, his rigorous definitions

like jargon. But to the majority of linguists, the simple clarity of Bloomfiele's diction first revealed in full the possibilities of scientific

discourse about language. It was Bloomfield who taught us the necessity of speaking about language in the style every scintist use when he speaks about the object of his reserch: impersonally, precisely, and

in terms that assume no more than actual observation discloses to him. In his long campaign to make a science of linguistics, the chief enemy that Bloomfield met was that habit of thought which is called

mentalism: the habit of appealing to mind and will as ready-made explanations of all possible problems. Most men regard this habit as

obvious common sense; but in Bloomfield's view, as in that of other scientists, it is mere superstition, unfruitful at best and deadly when carried over into scientific research. In the opposite approach—known

as positivism, determinism, or mechanism—Bloomfield saw the main hope of the world: for he was convinced that only the knowledge

gained by a strictly objective study of human behavior, including language, would one day make it possible for men to live at peace

with each other... (pp. 92---93).

Thus, Bloomfield, after a hard stuggle to make a science of the

study of language, developed the `postulational method' in his (1926) "A Set of Postulates for the Science of Language" . Bloomfield's `postulational method' had a great influence on progress in the sci-

entific study of language in America. This `postulational method'

expresses one of the important aspects of his mechanical view of

language. The postulational method (that is, assumptions or axioms)

examine and formulate "our (at present tacit) assumptions" and define "our (often undefined) terms" so that we can avoid "certain errors"

and save discussion, "because it limits our statements a defined

terminology; in particular, it cuts us from psychological dispute"

(p. 153).

He says that "within certain communities successive utterances

are alike or partly alike" (p. 154). This is "Assumption 1", which

he explained in the followin terms:

A needy stranger at the door says I'm hungry. A child who has


eaten and merely wants to put off going to bed says I'm hungry. Linguistics considers only those vocal features which are alike in the

two utterances, and only those stimulus-reaction features which are alike in the two utterances (p. 154).

To understand this statement we shall have to look over his

masterpiece, Language, especially chapters 9 and 10. At the begin-

ning of chapter 10, entitled "Gramatical Forms", he writes:

We assume that each linguistic form has a constant and definite meaning, different from the meaning of any other linguistic form in the

same language. Thus hearing several utterances of some one linguitic form, such as I'm hvngry, we assume (1) that the differences in sound

are irrelevant (unphonetic), (2) that the situations of the several speakers contain some common features and that the differences be-

tween these situations are irrelevant (unsemantic), and (3) that this linguistic meaning is different from that of any other form in the language. We have sean that this assumption cannot be verified, since

the speaker's situations and the hearer's responses may involve almost anything in the whole world, and, in particular, depend largely unon

the momentary state of their nervous systems (p. 158).

This means that though there are differences between the two

utterances, that is, phonetical and connotational differences, we can-

not help admitting that they are alike. This is what Bloomfiled

stated as "Assumption 1".

Then Bloomfield (1926) next gives a definition: "That which

is alike will be called same. That which is not same is different"

(p. 155). Thus, he defines meanings and forms as follows: "The

vocal features common to same or partly same utterances are forms;

the corresponding stimulus-reaction features are meanings" (p. 155).

In other words, "......a form is a recurrent vocal feature which has

meaning, and a meaning is a recurrent stimulus-reaction fearture

which corresponds to a form" (p. 155).

Here we notice that not only do "same utterances", "meanings"

and "forms" ignore "non-distinctive features", but that "a form is

often said to express its meaning" (Bloomfield, 1933, p. 141).

30 Toshiaki FUKAZAWA

Thus, the correlation between "form" and "meaning" became

clear. It can be illustrated as follows.

S-->r ...... s--->R meaning Form Meaning

The tendency of the `Neo-Bloomfieldian' school to neglect the

study of "meaning" can be traced to Bloomfield's attitude toward

meaning. This is clearly shown in the following passage:

The situations which prompt people to utter speech, include every object and happening in their universe. In order to give a scientifically

accurate definition of meaning for every form of a language, we should have to have a scientifically accurate knowledge of everything in the

speakers' world. The actual extent of human knowledge is very small, compared to this (Bloomfield, 1933, p. 139).

The statement of meanings is therefore the weak point in language- study, and will remain so until human knowledge advances very far

beyond its present state (ibid., p. 140).

He held that "linguistic study must always start from the phone-

tic form and not from the meaning" and that "the meanings could

be analyzed or systematically listed only by a well-nigh omniscient

observer" (Bloomfield, 1933, p. 162).

Though it has been said that Bloomfield and the `Bloomfieldian'

school made little positive contribution to semantics until the appear-

ance of Noam Chomsky, we shall come to this in due course.

1.4 Bloomfield----Weiss

As we have seen above Bloomfield accepted and developed a "mechanical" view of language . From what does this "mechanism"

derive? Here we have to mention Albert Paul Weiss.

Bloomfield wrote in the preface to his Language (1933) that in

1914 he had viewed language from the position of Wilhelm Wundt.

But by 1933, he had become a behaviorist partly as a result of his

association with the psychologist Albert Paul Weiss. And as Bloch


(1949, p. 89) wrote, Weiss's chief work, A theoretical basis of human

behavior, "had a profound influence on Bloomfield ."

Bloomfield (1931) himself wrote the obituary "Albert Paul Weiss" . The following passages will be useful for us to know more about

Weiss and his behaviorism:

Weiss was not a student of language, but he was probably the first man to see its significance. He saw that language supplied the key to those phenomena of human conduct and achievement which hitherto had been attributed to non-physical forces. There had always been students who refused to believe in the spectres of our tribal animism (mind, consciousness, will and the like) but these students had never given a clear-cut and satisfactory explanation for the super-biological actions of man-.--the actions which transcend the possibilities

of the animal world. In our time these students are the behaviorists,— an ugly name, said Weiss, but accepted it for want of better . Weiss was a devoted pupil of Max Meyer; the latter's system, most thorough in eliminating animism and finalism, formed the basis of Weiss's work. The pupil's enormous advance was due to his evaluation of language.

In addition to 'handling' responses, man has developed a system of vocal responses, language. These vocal responses serve as stimuli to the speaker's fellows: (p. 219).

Every step in the advance of human knowledge meets with a resistance which has grown feebler as the centuries have passed . The time may be near when Albert Paul Weiss will be counted a heroic figure in the progress of science (p. 221).

Erwin A. Esper, who had been pupil and assistant of Albert P .

Weiss, comments on the warm tone of Bloomfield's eulogy and states

the close frendship between Weiss and Bloomfield as follows:

Their friendship was product of their personalities; both were modest , unassuming, humorous, irreverent toward "the spectres of our tribal animism", intensely serious about questions of science , inclined to be contemptuous of acdemic triflers and humbugs.... Weiss's importance in this history (leaving out of account his influence in other directions) consists in his having transmitted to Bloomfield the objectivistic natu-ralism which had been developing, from the mid-nineteenth century , among biologically oriented psychologists in Germany , and which was

32Toshiaki FUKAZAWA

brought to America by Max Meyer. Weiss's writings may be described as "variations on themes of Max Meyer." (Esper, 1968, p. 174).

Esper (1968) also denies the correlation between John B. Watson

and Leonard Bloomfield, and writes:

For the lay public and for most psychologists, Watson was the founder of "behaviorism." For Leonard Bloomfield, Weiss created

the "mechanistic psychology" which constituted the extra-linguistic starting-point of Bloomfield's "postulates" (1926) and of his major

work (1933) (Esper, 1968, p.2).

Weiss's (1925, p. 53) statement, "Specific types of external stim-

uli, in addition to releasing specific manual responses, also release

verbal responses, and these become, for other individuals, substitute

stimuli for the original stimuli", reminds us of Bloomfield's "Jack

and Jill" paradigm; ......s--+R. If we compare the following

Weiss statement with Bloomfield's, we cannot but acknowledge how

much the latter owes to the former:

No non-physical, non-biological forces need be postulated, and until it has been conclusively demonstrated that the biological structure of man and his complex language and social environment are unable to

produce the social institutions which differentiate him from the animals, the assumption of a special mental force of a mind is gratuitous.

As we learn more about language, there arises a tendency to shift the burden of proof as to the existence of a special mental force,

upon those who hold this hypothesis (Weiss, 1925, p. 56). It is our hypothesis that the terms 'concept' ìdea', and so on add

nothing to this. We suppose that the person who says Ì was having an idea of a straight line' is telling us: Ì uttered out loud or produced

by inner speech movements the words straight line, and at the same time I made some obscuse visceral reactions with which I habitually

accompany the sight or feel of a straight edge or the utterance or hearing of the word straight. Of all this, only the verbal action is constant from person to person. If we are right, then the term ìdea'

is simply a traditional obscure synonym for 'speech-form', and it will appear that what we now call 'mental' events are in part private and unimportant events of physiology and in part social events (responses

which in their turn act as stimuli upon other persons or upon the


responder himself), namely acts of speech. If this is true , then linguistics in the future will deal with much wider problems than today

(Bloomfield, 1936, p. 95).

In the above monograph, "Language or Idea?, Bloomfield refers

to Weiss and states his own view on linguistics:

Linguistics as actually practised employs only such terms as are translatable into the langugae of physical and biological science; in this

linguistics differs from nearly all other discussion of human affairs. Within the next generations mankind will learn that only such terms

are usable in any science. The terminology in which at present we

try to speak of human affairs—the terminology of 'consciousness', 'mind' , 'perception', ,ideas', and so on—in sum, the terminology of

mentalism and animism—will be discarded, much as we have discarded Ptolemaic astronomy, and will be replaced in minor part by physio-

logical terms and in major part by terms of linguistics. This prediction was based not only upon what seem to me to be

the striking features of linguistic methodology, but in far greater measure upon the doctrine of non-animistic students of human be-

havior, especially upon the conclusions of our late colleague, Albert Paul Weiss (Bloomfield, 1936, p. 89).

Bloomfield (1936, p. 90) also mentions the "physicalism" of the

Vienna Circle, the main members of which were Rudolf Carnap and

Otto Neurath. They "have found that all scientfically meaningful

statements are translatable into physical terms--that is, into state-

ments about movements which can be observed and described in

coordinates of space and time." Thus, he asserts that the Vienna

Circle have indepenpeetly reached the conclusion of physicalism:

...any scientifically meaningful statement reports a movement in space and time. This confirms the conclusion of A. P. Weiss and

other American workers: the universe of sciences is physical universe. This conclusion implies that statements about 'ideas' are to be trans-

lated into statements about speech-forms (p. 89).

1.5 The Source of "Mechanism"

As we have seen above, Bloomfield's notion of "mechanism" is

34Toshiaki FUKAZAWA

almost the same as that of "operationalism", "physicalism", and "behaviorism" . It can be said that they consider the same concept

from different aspects respectively. They insist that "any scientifically

meaningful statement reports a movement in space and time", hence

one must use physical instead of mentalistic terms. Their insistence

upon non-mentalistic approach infers methodological questions.

Having already seen that Bloomfield had adopted "behaviorism"

through A. P. Weiss, we shall have to look into this "behaviorism",

especially its source.

Esper (1968) treats this problem from the mechanist viewpoint.

The "beaviorism" which was transmitted from Meyer to Weiss,

and from Weiss to Bloomfield, "was not the expression of a sudden

and radical break in the continuity of science" (Esper, 1968, p. 155).

The following passage from Esper (1968, p. 149) will be useful for

our purpose:

Thus from Planck to Weiss the religious component in scientific discourse, and the "idealistic" or "spiritualistic" tradition stemming from Plato, became progressively attenuated, whereas the ethical component of the "materialistic" tradition stemming from Democritus remained prominent .... I have gone into the history of this subject at some length because I think that it is of importance to our under-standing of the origins and nature of that "behaviorism" or "mecha-nism" which Bloomfield adopted in 1933. We cannot arrive at such an understanding if we accept the legend that behaviorism was in-vented by John B. Watson, or the dogma that it was created by men ignorant of philosophy and inhumane in their attitudes toward their fellow men. Behaviorism—in the sense of objective psychology—was a product of the great political, religious, and social changes accom-

panying and interacting with the rapid acceleration of scientific research in the last decades of the nineteenth and the early decades of the twentieth centuries. The ideals of objectivity, of unbiased research and of pure science as both the highest activity of man and the surest means of improving the lot of mankind—these ideals might be con-sidered to have been as lofty as any held by theologians, philosophers, or spititually or mentalistically inclined psychologists. The label of

philosophical naivety which some linguistic philosophers-at-large have


wished to attach to the behaviorism of Weiss and Bloomfield is nothing less than grotesque.

"Mentalism" corresponds to the "idealistic" tradition stemming

from Plato. "Mechanism" or "behaviorism" corresponds to the "materialistic" tradition stemmi

ng from Democritus. Concerning

the fact that the former tended to yield to the latter , Esper writes as follows:

In the history which we are traversing—Planck, Stumpf , Ebbunghaus, Meyer—we see the progressive separation of science from religion—

but with an intensifying ethical interest—until when we arrive at Meyer we find religion portrayed as the great source , not only of obfuscation, but also of human misery. In psychology, the tradition

stemming from Pythagoras and Plato, and elaborated by the Christian theologians, in which the important component of human beings was

the soul, became attenuated to some form of mentalism , which then, with the continued successes of science, particularly of biology , tended

to yield to objectivism. All those terms which have commonly been regarded, and which by some linguists and other scientists are still regarded, as pejorative—materialism, physicalism , positivism, natural-

ism—came often to be associated in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries not only with a more rigorous objectivism in science but

also with a heightened humanitarianism in ethics (p. 126).

Giving support to the materialistic tradition of behaviorism , Esper (1968, p. 179) stresses that though the "emotional and moral

nature" of some philosphers' and linguists' "reaction was revealed

by the epithets which they used", that is, "crass", "hardboiled" , "mechanistic fetishism"

, "mechanical materialism", it never reduces "all intellect

, virture and beauty to a Democritearian swirl of atoms".

For the behaviorist, "... the humanitarian motivation was at least

as strong as the scientific; it was in the tradition of Epicurus and

Lucretius, and in the sprit of Friedrich Lange and Bertrand Russell"

(p. 181).

Here we have come to the crucial point. As we have seen , in the broader sense of the word, "materialism" characterizes "behav-

36Toshiaki FUKAZAWA

iorism". So, to undersand the "mechanism" or "behaviorism", we

shall have to have a proper understanding of this "materialism",

that is, the materialistic view of man.

It was no less a person than Charles Darwin (1809-1888) who

had had a decisive influence upon the materialistic view of man in

the modern history. It is not too much to say that Darwin's materi-

alistic view of man, supported by so much concrete evidence, had

altered the stream of modern philosophic thought regarding language.

Esper (1968) refers to Darwinism and writes:

...the second half of the nineteenth century was characterized in both physiology and psychology by an objectivistic and mechanistic

trend. Developments in anatomy, physiology, and physiological chemistry, reinforced by the enormous influence of Darwinism, encouraged

the belief in the continuity of psychology with the "natural sciences", and in particular, the belief that the phenomena of animal and human

"mental" activity could be deterministically explained in terms of "natural" laws; i.e., laws based on objective observations eventually

expressible in physiological, chemical, and physical terms. Among the considerable number of men who contributed to this movement,

Helmholtz, Sechenov and Ebbinghaus might be considered the chief founders of "behaviorism"; that is, of the study of "mental" activity

by objective and quantitative methods (pp. 137-138).

As we have seen in 1.3, Bloomfield's absorbing interest in lin-

guistics was to make a science of it. It seems obvious that "the

belief that the penomena of animal and human `mental' activity

could be determinstically explained in terms of `natural' laws" un-

derlies Bloomfield's attitude toward the question.

Concerning the influence of Derwin, Robert L. Miller (1968)

writes:

Influenced by Darwin, the majority of linguists regarded language as part of nature, as a tool to aid man in adapting himself to his en-

vironment but not as fundamentally altering his conception of that environment. Under this view language itself came to be explained

in the same terms as nature, namely, as following certain physical or

physiological 'laws' (p. 35).


When Darwin formulated the evolutionary theory in reference

to man in his Descent of Man in 1871, the barrier between man and

animal was taken away. Chapters 3 and 4 of his (1879) Descent of

Man bears the title "Comparison of the Mental Powers of Man and

the Lower Animals." Throughout these two chapters he fully ex-

plains that man is not separated from animals either by his mental faculties or his language. "My object in this chapter", he writes, "is to show that there is no fundamental difference between man

and the higher mammals in there mental faculties" (p. 66). Before

Darwin it had been assumed that language was a product of man's

reason: it was this reason that marked him off from the lower ani-

mals. But Darwin challenged this view:

Of all the faculties of the human mind it will, I presume, be admitted that Reason stands at the summit.

Only a few persons now dispute that animals possess some power of reasoning. Animals may constantly be seen to pause, deliberate, and

resolve. It is a significant fact, that the more the habit of any particular animal are studied by a naturarist, the more he attributes to

reason and the less to unlearnt instincts. In future chapters we shall see that some animals extremely low in

the scale apparently display a certain amount of reason (p. 75).

Thus it was only natural for him not to regard language as

man's evclusive possession:

Language—This faculty has justly been considered as one of the chief distinctions between man and the lower animals. But man, as a highly competent judge, Archibishop Whately remarks, "is not the

only animal that can make use of language to express what is passing in his mind, and can understand, more or less, what is so expressed

by another" (p. 84).

From a body of facts Darwin draws the following conclusion:

...the difference in mind between man and the higher animals, great as it is, certainly is one of degree and not of kind. (p. 126).

38Toshiaki FUKAZAWA

Since he considered that the language of man had originated

from the cries of the animals, for him the language of man is only

the complicated form of animal cries. It was a difference in degree

and not in kind. It is obvious that this view of language corresponds

to his materialistic view of man, which was drawn from his evolu-

tionary theory. Thus Wilson (1941, p. 45) says: "It is customary

now and a mark of modernism to speak of the language of animals

and the language of man as merely two branches of the same thing,

as though there were no longer any doubt about the question."

It is Darwin's materialistic view of man that underlies "mecha-

nism", "behaviorism" and "physicalism". Here we can clearly

understand Bloomfield's "Jack and Jill" paradigm and his insistence

upon the necessity for using the physical terms discarding the ter-

minology of 'consciousness', `mind', `perception', `idea', and so on.

Bloomfield's stimulus—response theory is in itself the theory of 'objectivistic biology' and of `animal psychology' .

Thus we have come to the conclusion that there are two phases

of "mechanism". One is the phase of methodology, and the other

is the phase of a view of man.

----- 1. Methodology:

MechanismTo use physical terms discarding the terminology of 'mind' . 'idea' Behaviorismand so on.

Physicalism

----- 2. A view of man: To regard man as a complicated

from of animal life.

Bloomfield treats "mechanism" mainly as questions of method-

ology. But there can be no doubt, as we have seen, that the mate-

rialistic view of man underlies the methodology. The following

statements implicity express what I have stated above:

The materialistic (or, better, mechanistic) theory supposes that


the variability of human conduct, including speach, is due only to the fact that the human body is a very complex system. Human action,

according to the materialistic view, are part of cause-and-effect se-

quences exactly like those which we observe, say in the study of physics or chemistry (Bloomfield, 1933, p. 33).

Furthermore he mentions the practical effectiveness of the ma-

terialistic view and writes:

A worker who accepts the materialistic hypothesis in psychology is under no such temptation; it may be stated as a principle that in all

sciences like linguistics, which observe some specific type of human activity, the worker must proceed exactly as if he held the material-

istic view. This practical effectiveness is one of the strongest con- siderations in favor of scientific materialism (ibid. p. 38).

Thus, it can be said that the question of "mentalism" and "mechanism" is not only the question of method

ology but also the

question of a view of man. And at the back of "mechanism" lies

the materialistic view of man that derives mainly from Darwin.

2. Mentalism-----Sapir, Chomsky

2.1 Introduction

We have seen in the previous chapter that the question of a

view of language is basically the question of a view of man and

that the materialistic view of man underlies "mechanism". We have

also seen that this materialistic view of man stemming from Demo-

critus, was strongly influenced by Darwin in the modern history.

Concerning the mental faculties, Darwin insisted that there was no

fundamental difference between man and animal and that the dif-

ference in mind between them is one of degree and not of kind.

This materialistic view is opposed to the "idealistic" or "spi-

ritualistic" view stemming also from the Greek philosopher, Plato.

This idealistic view, which asserts that the important component

of human beings is the soul, was elaborated by the Christian theo-

40Toshiaki FUKAZAWA

logians and gradually became attenuated to some form of "mental-

ism" (see Esper, 1968, p. 126). So it can be said that "mentalism"

and "mechanism" are to a view of language what "idealism" and "materialism" are to a view of man .

Leonard Bloomfield, as we have seen in Chapter 1, adopted "behaviorism" through Weiss as a framework for linguistic descrip -

tion. He called it "mechanism". And though he is thought to be

the founder of American structural linguistics, strictly speaking, as

Fries (1962). writes, it was Sapir's "Sound Patterns in Language"

in the official journal of the Linguistic Society of America, Language

(1925) that marked the beginning of American structural linguistics. "This article represents , I believe, the break-through into the new approach which has developed into our `structural linguistics' "

(Fries, 1962, p. 60). But Bloomfield had had a much greater in-fluence on American linguists than Sapir. It is due to the differ-

ence in a view of language between them, that is, their respective "mechanism" and "mentalism" . Concerning this difference Leroy

(1967, pp. 116-117) writes:

The mechanistic or behaviorist approach, deriving from Bloomfield... is a positivist system that considers that language, just like other

human activities, is a natural consequence of the actions and reactions of the different elements making up the human body.

Mentalism, on the other hand, the approach preferred by E. Sapir and on the whole by R. Jakobson, is a psychological doctrine that

considers that the variability of language is an effect of the action on physical factors of a spiritual force (will, reflection, emotivity, ete.)

that operates on our nervous system. As opposed to the behaviorists, Sapir... held that the `linguistic consciousness' of the speakers must be taken into account.

Since Bloomfield adopted "mechanism" and discarded "mental-

ism" in his Language (1933), American linguistics tended toward

the former. But as we shall see in due course, "mentalism" sur-

vived and has revived lately, having had a strong advocate Noam

Chomsky.


Bloomfield's "mechanism", as I have emphasized in the previous

chapter, is traceable to Darwin. Sapir's "mentalism" traces its line

of descent to the following persons: to Rene Descartes (1596-1650),

Johann Gottfried Herder (1774-1803), and Wilhelm von Humboldt

(1.767-1835) (see Chomsky, 1965,. 1966 b; Wilson, 1941., Chapter IV, V).

They believed that language was a unique characteristic of man

and a product of his reason. They had never admitted the mecha-

nistic view that the difference between the language of man and

the cries of animals is a difference in degree and not in kind. But

under the influence of Darwinian naturalism, as I have explained

in the previous chapter, "the inseparability of Geist and Sprache,

upon which Humboldt had insisted, was replaced by a tendency to

regard language as but another episode in nature" (see Miller, 1968,

p. 11). "Sapir's knowledge of Humboldt was apparently direct" (see

Brown, 1967, p. 16) and the "Sapir—Whorf" hypothesis derives from

Humboldt. Here we shall have to make reference to the `linguistic

relativity' hypothesis:

...each language was said to contain a peculiar Weltanschauung, which causes its speakers to `see' the world in a way different from

the speakers of other languages. The earliest formulation of this conception of language, which has since come to be known as the

`linguistic relativity' hypothesis , is usually associated with the name of Wilhelm von Humboldt, but foreshadowings of it can be found in

the writings of his immediate predecessors, Johann Georg Hamann and Johann Gottfried Herder (Miller, 1968, p. 10).

It was E. Sapir who revived Humboldt's hypothesis in America.

...an American version of linguistic relativity was appearing. The hypothesis of linguistic relativity was probably introduced to America

by Franz Boas, became well known through its formulation by his student Edward Sapir, and was vigorously defended in the writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf (ibid., p. 11).

This American version of linguistic relativity is what is called

42Toshiaki FUKAZAWA

the "Sapir-Whorf" hypothesis. And Brown (1967, p. 16), making

reference to the direct continuity of thought from Herder to Whorf,

writes: "...there is no mystery about where at least some of the

perspectives of Boas, Sapir, and Whorf came from; the line from Herder to Whorf is unbroken...."

2.2 Sapir

The difference between "mentalism" and "mechanism" can be

clearly seen in the definition of language. Sapir defines language

in his Language (1921) as follows:

Language is a purely human and non-instinctive method of communi- cating ideas, emotions, and desires by means of a system of voluntarily

produced symbols. These symbols are, in the first instance, auditory and they are produced by the so-called "organs of speech." There

is no discernible instinctive basis in human speech as such, however much instinctive expression and the natural environment may serve

as a stimulus for the development of certain elements of speech, however much instinctive tendencies, motor and other, may give a

predetermined range or mold to linguistic expression. Such human or animal communication, if "communication" it may be called, as is

brought about by involuntary, instinctive cries is not, in our sense, language at all (p. 8).

For Sapir language is a unique characteristic of man and animal

communication is not language at all. For the mechanist, language

consists of verbal responses:

Language as a form of behavior through which the individual adjusts himself to a social environment, is not the same thing as language as

a medium of expression of so-called subjective desires, hopes, and aspirations. As a form of behavior, language represents biological,

physiological, and social conditions; as a medium of expression, it as- sumes the existence of non-physical forces or types of psychical energy

whose existence has not been adequately demonstrated (Weiss, 1925, p. 52).

In the above statement Weise regards language as a form of

behavior, and not as a medium of expression of so-called subjective


desires, hopes, and aspirations. Weiss's definition of language is

therefore opposed to Sapir's. Moreover, in the following statement

we can clearly see a view of language traceable to Darwin. The

origin of man's language is considered to be a form of sensorimotor

interchange common to both man and animal; and the difference

in language between them to be one of degree:

Human achievement, as compared with animal achievement, dif-

ferentiate itself particularly through its greater variety and through

its cooperative character. The essential condition for producing these

effects is a high degree of sensorimotor interchangeability between

individuals.... This simple form of sensorimotor interchange is

common to both man and animal, and such signaling may be regarded

as the beginning of language behavior. In man the process soon

becomes very complex. Specific types of external stimuli, in addition

to releasing specific manual responses, also release verbal responses

and these become, for other individuals, substitute stimuli for the

original stimuli. The number of these substitute systems become

greater and we have the biginning of what we know as human speech

(Weiss, 1925, pp. 52-53).

When we compare these two kinds of view on language we im-

mediately notice how Sapir's view differes from Weiss's. Sapir clearly

states his mentalistic view of language in his two monographs, "Sound Patterns in Language" in 1925 and "The Psychological

Reality of Phonemes" in 1933. He puts his view and purpose quite

clearly in the opening lines of the former:

There used to be and to some extent still is a feeling among linguists that the psychology of a language is more particularly concerned with its grammatical features, but that its sound and its phonetic processes belong to a grosser physiological substratum. Thus, we sometimes hear it said that such phonetic processes as the palatalizing of a vowel by a following i or other front vowel ("umlaut") or the series of shifts in the manner of articulating the old Indo-European stopped consonants which have become celebrated under the name of "Grimm's Law" are merely mechanical processes, consumated by the organs of speech and by the nerves that control them as a set of shifts in relatively simple sensorimotor habits. It is my purpose in this paper as briefly as may

44Toshiaki FUKAZAWA

be, to indicate that the sounds and processes of speech cannot be properly understood in such simple, mechanical terms (Sapir, 1925,

p. 49).

As Fries (1962, p. 61) says, this article "is a fully developed

demonstration with the evidence of both the negative and the posi-

tive aspects of his general statement." Sapir completely demon-

strated his view that "mechanical and other detached methods of

studying the phonetic elements of speech are, of course, of consider-

able effect of obscuring the essential facts of speech-sound psy-

chology" (Sapir, 1925, p. 53). And at the end of this article he

states his mentalistic view, in opposition to the mechanistic view of

attributing man's language to the so-called physical forces:

The whole aim and spirit of this paper has been to show that phonetic

phenomena are not physical phenomena per se, however necessary in the preliminary stages of inductive linguistic reserch it may be to get

at the phonetic facts by way of their physical embodiment (p. 65).

In "The psychological Reality of Phonemes", as its title shows,

Sapir treats phoneme from the mentalistic viewpoint. He stresses

the point that there is nothing in human experience that can be

adequately explained on physical principles:

THE CONCEPT of the "phoneme" (a functionally significant unit in the rigidly difined pattern of configuration of sounds peculiar to a

language), as distinct from that of the "sound" or "phonetic element" as such (an objectively definable entity in the articulated and perceived totality of speech), is becoming more and more familiar to linguists. The

difficulty that may still seem to feel in distinguishing between the two must eventually disappear as the realization grows that no entity in

human experience can be adequately defined as the mechanical sum or product of its physical properties (Sapir, 1933, p. 67).

2.3 Chomsky

Chomsky, as I have touched on in section 1, is the successor to

Sapir. As Lyons (1970, p. 30) writes, Sapir did take a more `huma-


nistic' view of language than Bloomfield and laid "great stress on

its cultural importance, on the priority of reason over volition and

emotion (emphasizing what he calls 'the prevailing cognitive character'

of language)." Sapir considered language to be 'purely human' and 'non -instinctive' . And "...many of the attitudes towards language

that Sapir held are now held by Chomsky" (ibid., p. 30).

It is the notion of `creative' and `universal' aspect of language

that characterizes Chomsky's linguistic theory. Concerning the `creative' aspect of language Chomsky (1966 a)

writes:

The most striking aspect of linguistic competence is what we may call the `creativity of language', that is, the speaker's ability to produce new sentences, sentences that are immediately understood by

other speakers although they bear no physical resemblance to sentences with which they are `familiar' (p. 11).

It is this `creativity of language' which accounts for the fact that

children, by the age of five or six, can produce and understand an

indefinitely large number of new sentences.

The notion of the `universal' aspect of languages is that all

languages have certain qualities in common, although each has its

peculiarites. He holds that there are certain syntactic, semantic and

phonological properties that are universal. Thus he (1965) writes:

The study of linguistic universals is the study of the properties of any generative grammar for a natural language. Particular assumptions about linguistic universals may pertain to either the

syntactic, semantic, or phonological component, or to interrelations among the three components (p. 28).

But how do children learn their native languages, that is, how

do they manage to develop that creative command of their native

languages which enables them to produce and understand sentences

which they have never heard before? And if all human languages

are strikingly similar in structure, it is quite natural to ask why

this should be so. The only conceivable explanation, says Chomsky,

46Toshiaki FUKAZAWA

is that all children are genetically endowed with a highly specific `language faculty'

, that is, they are born with the ability for learning

language, with a knowledge of lingustic universals:

Clearly, a child who has learned a language has developed an internal representation of a system of rules that determine how sentences are

to be formed, and understood.... He has done this on the basis of observation of what we may cell primary linguistic data.... To

learn a language, then, the child must have a method for devising an appropriate grammar, given primary linguistic data. As a precondi-

tion for language learning, he must possess, first, a linguistic theory that specifies the form of the grammar of a possible human language,

and, second, a strategy for selecting a grammar of the appropriate form that is compatible with the primary linguistic data. As a long-

range task for general linguistics, we might set the problem developing an account of this innate linguistic theory that provides the basis for

language learning (Chomky, 1965, p. 25).

And this innate linguistic theory, he continues, "incorporates

an account of linguistic universals, and it attributes tacit knowledge

of these universals to the child" (ibid., p. 27):

It proposes, then, that the child approaches the data with the pre- sumption that are drawn from a language of certain antecedently

well-defined type, his problem being to determine which of the (humanly) possible language is that of the community in which he is

placed. Language learning would be impossible unless this were the case (ibid., p. 27).

Man's inborn `language faculty' and his tacit knowledge of

linguistic universals, constitute what is called competance. Chomsky

(1965, p. 4) makes "a fundamental distinction between competence

(the speaker-hearer's knowledge of his language) and performance

(the actual use of language in concrete situations)" (ibid., p. 4). He

insists that his notion of competence corresponds "to the Humboldt-

ian conception of underlying competence as system of generative

processes" (ibid., p. 4). For him a grammar of a language is "a

description of the ideal speaker-hearer's intrinsic competence" (ibid.,


p. 4). And when the grammar is perfectly explicit, he calls it a

generative grammar.

Thus he states that linguistic theory is mentalistic:

The problem for the linguist, as well as for the child learning the language, is to determine from the data of performance the under -

lying system of rules that has been mastered by the speaker-hearer and that he puts to use in actual performance. Hence , in the technical

sense, linguistic theory is mentalistic, since , it is concerned with dis- covering a mental reality underlying actual behavior (ibid ., p. 4).

In his notes to the above statement he makes reference to the

issue of mentalism versus antimentalism , and writes:

To accept traditional mentalism, in this way , is not to accept Bloomfile's dichotomy of "mentalism" versus "mechanism ." Mental-

istic linguistics is simply theoretical linguistics that uses performance as deta (along with other data, for example, the data provided by

introspection) for the determination of competence, the latter being taken as the primary object of its investigation .... In fact, the

issue of mentalism versus antimentalism in linguistics apparently has to do only with goals and interests, and not with questions of truth

or falsity, sense or nonsence.... It is the dualistic position against which Bloomfield irrelevantly inveighed . The beaviorist position is

not an arguable matter. It is simply an expression of lack of interest in theory and explanation (ibid., p. 193).

As we have seen, Chomsky holds that the central purpose of

linguistics is to construct a deductive theory of the structure of

human language. That is, he holds that linguistics should determine

the universal and essential properties of human language (see Lyons , 1970, p. 99). And in this respect Chomsky is diametrically opposed

to BIoomfield, as following passage from Bloofield (1933) shows:

The only useful generalizations about language are inductive gen-

eralizations. Features which we think ought to be universal may be

absent from the very next language that becomes accessible.... The

fact that some features are, at any rate, widespread, is worthly of

notice and calls for an explanation; when we have adequate data

about many languages, we shall have to return to the problem of

48Toshiaki FUKAZAWA

grammar and to explain these similarities and divergences, but this study, when it comes, will be not speculative but inductive (p. 20).

As Bloomfield's view of language can be traced back to Darwin,

so can Chomsky's to Descartess', the relation to which we shall come

to in due course.

Chomsky (1965) formulates "certain problems of linguistic the-

ory" as "questions about the construction of a hypothetical language-

acquisition device" (p.47). He distinguishes "two general lines of

approach to the problem of acquisition of knowledge, of which the

problem of acquisition of language is- special and particularly infor-

mative case" (ibid., p. 47). One is the `empiricist' and the other

the `rationalist' approach. The empiricist claims that "all knowledge

derives from experience", whereas the rationalist claims that the

mind (or reason) is the sole source of human knowledge (see Lyons,

1970, p. 96). To use his (1965, pp. 47-48) own words, " ...the em-

piricist approach has assumed that the structure of the acquisition

device is limited to certain elementary, `peripheral processing mecha-

nism' ..." and "The rationalist approach holds that beyond the

peripheral processing mechanism, there are innate ideas and prin-

ciples of various kinds that determine the form of the acquired

knowledge in what may be a rather restricted and highly organized

way."

Chomsky, the rationalist, regards the generative grammar as

the rationalist view and the taxonomic, dataprocessing approach of

modern linguistics as the empiricist view:

We have a certain amount of evidence about the character of the

generative grammars that must be the "output" of an acquisition model for language. This evidence shows clearly that taxonomic views of linguistic structure are inadequate and that knowledge of

grammatical structure cannot arise by application of step-to-step inductive operations (segmentation, classification, substitution procedures,

filling of slots in frames, association, etc.) of any sort that have yet been developed within linuistics, psychology, or philosophy. Further


empricist speculations contribute nothing that even faintly suggests a way of overcoming the intrinsic limitations of the methods that have

so far been proposed and elaborated (Chomsky, 1965, p. 57).

Katz, in his "Mentalism in Linguistics" , treats the problem of mentalism and taxonomic conception of linguistics. Having explained

Chomskyan mentalism, the explanation of which we can presume

to have received Chomsky's approval he asserts that a taxonomic

conception of linguistics should be rejected:

We have found that the taxonomic linguist confined linguistic investi-

gation to stating those facts about the structure of a natural language which can be formulated within the framework of a classificational

system, while the mentalist goes far beyond this in seeking a full answer to all three questions. This difference is important: it justifies

us in rejecting the taxonomic conception in favor of the mentalistic one. Taxonomic linguistics can only describe the utterances of a

language; mentalistic linguistics not only can do this but can also explain how speakers communicate by using the utterances, and how the ability to communicate is acquired. Instead of the taxonomic

linguist having a just complaint against the mentalist for appealing to occult entities, the mentalist has a just complaint against the tax-

onomic linguist for excluding from linguistics, a priori and arbitrarily, just what it is most important for this science to do. The freedom

from mentalism inherent in the taxonomic conception of linguistics is its inherent weakness (Katz, 1964, p. 84).

The empiricist view has been greatly influential in the develop-

ment of modern psychology. As Lyons (1970, p. 97) writes, "com-

bined with physicalism and determinism", the empiricist view "has

been responsible for the view... that human knowledge and human

behaviour are wholly determined by the environment, there being no

radical difference in this respect between human being and other

animals...." But Chomsky's view of man is very different. He

sees the fundamental difference between man and animals. It is

the 'creative' aspect of language that distinguishes man from other

animals. Thus it is quite natural for him to be opposed to "be-

haviorism" and "mechanism". He maintains that the behaviorist's

50Toshiaki FUKAZAWA

'learning theory' cannot explain the `creativity' at all . Concerning

this, Lyons (1970, p. 110) writes:

He has made a strong... case against behaviourism ...and he has argued... that the gap between human language and systems of animal

communication is such that it cannot be bridged by any obvious ex- tension of current psychological theories of 'learning' based on labor-

atory experiments with animals.

Chomsky's view of man can be clearly seen in his Cartesian

Linguistics. In this book he dwells on Descartes's view of man:

In short, then, man has a species-specific capacity, a unique type of intellectual organization which cannot be attributed to peripheral

organs or related to general intelligence and which manifests itself in what we may refer to as the "creative aspect" of ordinary langu-

age use—its property being both unbounded in scope and stimulus-free. Thus Descates maintains that language is available for the free ex-

pression of thought or for appropriate response in any new context and is undetermined by fixed association of utterances to external

stumuli or physiological states (identifiable in any noncircular fashion). Arguing from the presumed impossibility of a mechanistic expla-

nation for the creative aspect of nomal use of language, Descartes concludes that in addition to body it is necessary to attribute mind

—a substance whose essence is thought—to other humans. From the

arguments that he offers for the association of mind to bodies that "bear a resemblance" to his , it seems clear that the postulated

substance plays the role of a "creative principle" alongside of the "mechanical principle" that accounts for bodily function . Human

reason, in fact, "is a universal instrument which can serve for all contingencies, "whereas the organs of an animal or machine" have

need of some special adaptation for any particular action (Chomsky, 1966 b, pp. 4-5).

"Descartes", says Chomsky, "makes a sharp distinction between

man and animal, arguing that animal behavior is a matter of instinct

and that the perfection and specificity of animal instinct make it

subject to mechanical explanation" (ibid., p. 13).

And this `creative' aspect of normal language use, which is the

primary indicator of Descartes' view that man alone is more than


mere automatism, was at the core of Humboldtian general linguistics

(see Chomsky, 19661), pp. 13-31) :

The two Cartesian tests (possession of language, diversity of action) are interrelated by Herder, in an original way, in his influential Prize

Essay on the origin of language. Like Descartes, Herder argues that human language is different in kind from exclamations of passion and that it cannot be attributed to superior organs of articulation, nor, obviously, can it have its origins in imitation of nature or in an

"argument" to form language . Rather, language is a natural property of the human mind (Chomsky, 1966 b, pp. 13---14).

Although language have universal properties, attributable to human mentality as such, nevertheless each language provides a "thought

world" and a point of view of a unique sort. In attributing such a role in the determination of mental processes to individual languages,

Humboldt departs radically from the framework of Cartesian linguistics, of course, and adopts a point of view that is more typically

romantic. Humboldt does remain within the Cartesian framework, however,

in so far as he regards language primarily as a means of thought and self-expression rather than as an animal-like functional communication

system ... (ibid., p. 21).

There can be no doubt that what is conveyed here strikes at the

core of Chomskyan generative grammar. Further confirmation of his

position is found in the Preface to Aspects of the Theory of Syntax:

The idea that a language is based on a system of rules determining the interpretation of its infinitely many sentences is by no means novel.

Well over a century ago, it was expressed with reasonable clarity by Wilhelm von Humboldt in his famous but rarely studied introduction

to general linguistics (Humboldt, 1836). His view that a language "makes infinite use of finite means" and that its grammar must

describe the processes that make this possible is, furthermore, an outgrowth of a persistent concern, within rationalistic philosophy of language and mind, with this "creative" aspect of language use.

and

3. Conclusion

We have seen in the previous two chapters what "mentalism" "mechanism" are . Questions of "mentalism" and "mechanism"

52Toshiaki FUKAZAWA

are not only questions of methodology but also questions of a view

of language and therefore of view of man. Thus a view of man

determines a view of language and a view of language determines

methodology. We have also seen that "mentalism" and "mecha-

nism" can be traced back to Plato and Democritus, respectively:

Mentalism Plato------'Descartes------~Herder-- .Humboldt *Sapir--*Chomsky

Mechanism Democritus---ADarwin-->Meyer----~Weiss--y---›Bloomfield

The materialistic view of man underlies "mechanism". When

it considers man as merely a complicated form of animal it main-

tains that man is not separated from the animal world, neither by

his intelligence nor his language, except in degree of development.

It rejects the mentalistic terminology, that is, 'mind', 'idea', 'reason', `will' and so on

, and insists on using the physical terms which

animal psychologists and the objectivistic biologists use in their

study.

The idealistic view of man underlies "mentalism". Its propo-

nents maintain that man is fundamentally different from the animals

and regard language as a product of man's reason. They concentrate

their attention on the very difference between the two, that is, on

the 'creative aspect' of ordinary language use, and they try to explain

man's language in this framework. And it is Chomsky who offered

Cartesian "rationalism" as an improvement for the Bloomfieldian "behaviorism" and thereby revolutionized the scientific study of

language from the mentalistic viewpoint. Chomsky's position within

linguistics is quite unique:

There are at least as many recognizably different 'schools' of linguistics throughout the world as there were before the `Chomskyan revo-

lution'. But the 'transformationalist' or `Chomskyan', school is not just one among many. Right or wrong, Chomsky's theory of grammar

is undoubtedly the most dynamic and influential; and no linguist who wishes to keep abreast of current developments in his subject can


afford to ignore Chomsky's theoretical pronuncements. Every other 'school' of linguistics at the present time tends to define its position

in relation to Chomsky's view on particular issues (Lyons, 1970, p. 9).

It is interesting to note here that Esper, who had been pupil

of Alber P. Weiss and had been under the personal influence of

Leonard Bloomfield, regards Chomsky's "Cartesian linguistics" as

a fashion in science, that is, as "manifestations of a cyclical swing

rather than of a progression toward ultimate truth" (Esper, 1968,

p. 220).

If Chomsky's "mentalism" is the latest fashion, Bloomfiled's "mechanism" is

, in a way, out of fashon. There are obviously two

trends in modern linguistics. So it is only natural to ask which

one can explain language more adequately. It is not easy to answer

the question. The result has not come out yet. It seems, however,

that "mentalism" as Katz (1964) says, offers a greater validity and

depth of approach than "mechanism". The mechanist treats only

the phenomena of languages, and not what is at the back of the

phenomena of languages. In other words, the data of performance

exhaust the domain of interest for the mechanist. He is not con-

cerned with other facts, in particular those pertaining to the deeper

systems that underlie the phenomena of languages (see Chomsky,

1965, p. 193) . The mechaists' approach to language is oriented to-

ward the 'procedural' to the neglect of the aim of linguistic theory

itself. To them a question of theory is a question of method. Thus

in the mechanistic approach, the aim of linguistics would be to

determine the patterns in the data, that is, to collect the data,

phenetic data in particular, in view of that determination.

In the mentalistic approach, on the contrary, the main aim is, as

we have seen, to study man's competence—man's tacit knowledge

of his language—that is, to establish an abstract system of rules

which he has mastered, in order to explain all conceivable linguistic

phenomena.

54Toshiaki FUKAZAWA

A theory which restricts itself to a framework established merely

to account for patterns in a limited sample of data—a `corpus'-based

approach--is denied access to the depth of language as a whole.

Linguistic theory must establish general principles which "would

explain the salient characteristics of human language as a whole"

(Crystal, 1971, p. 117).

Bibliography

Bloch, B., "Leonard Bloomfied", Language, 1949, 25, 87-98. Bloomfield, L., "Why a Linguistic Society?, Language, 1925, 1, 1-5.

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56 ToshiakiFUxAZAWA

服部四郎,rMentalisticallyorMechanistically?」言語学の方法,PP・?64--7?8.

岩波,1960.

大泉孝編,「認識論概説」エンデル書店,昭26・

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リュフナー著t高橋憲一訳「人間における生命,心,精神」森の道社,昭31・

mentalism and mechanism in linguistics 深...

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