Rethinking the hypothesis of innatism: genes and language

Abstract

In an interdisciplinary framework (studies on the brain with powerful new techniques and the emergence of the minimalist program in linguistic theory), it's necessary to rethink the question of innateness associated with language acquisition device (or the so-called universal grammar). A response may come from the analysis suggestive unbiased of the relationship between genes and language. The linker between genotype language (universal grammar) and linguistic phenotype conceived as a maturation process (with some aspects of epigenesis) involves making a reconsideration of innateness. Understanding ontogenetic and phylogenetic basis of language leads us to support the following hypothesis: in the emergence of universal grammar has intervened mechanism known as the Baldwin effect, which can be interpreted within the evolutionary framework more orthodox. The Biolinguistics also involves making a reduction defining language: this is conceptualized, strictly speaking, following the criterion sintactocentric as merge and recursion. So we can conclude that language is genetically determined, not as a suggestive metaphor, but as a well-grounded theoretical construct.