COMMENTARY

Economic & Political Weekly EPW november 2, 2013 vol xlviii no 44

23
Chomsky and Wittgenstein
A Short Reection
Ramaswamy R Iyer
This criticism explores the
relationship between the
Chomskyan and Wittgensteinian
views of language. It argues that
Chomskyan linguistics seems
reductionist, as it denes
linguistics narrowly, refusing that
name to many different kinds of
language study.
A
s the subject of this article is out-
side my usual beat of water-related
issues, let me begin on a personal
note. In the late 1940s and early 1950s
before I accidentally stumbled into
central civil service I studied and later
taught English language and literature
at Elphinstone College, Mumbai. Among
other things, I developed a deep interest
in linguistics, phonology, philo sophy of
grammar, and so on. In 1949, I was
introduced to Ludwig Josef Johann
Wittgensteins work by my friend (the
late) K J Shah, a student and friend of
Wittgensteins, who had just returned
from Cambridge, and that philosophy
became a lifelong interest. That was
the route through which I came to
Noam Chomsky.
I started reading Chomsky in the 1970s,
with great admiration for the rare origi-
nality and distinction of mind that the
writings revealed, but with nagging doubts
regarding the theories put forward. Even-
tually gradually, hesitantly I became
a dissenter from his ideas. My long article
on Chomskyan linguistics in a recent issue
of the Journal of the Indian Council of
Philosophical Research
1
was the nal ver-
sion of an exploratory essay that I had
started writing ve years earlier, and
represents the closing stages of my grap-
pling with Chomsky. Continued thinking
after writing that article has taken me a
bit further on the path of dissent. In the
present article, after a brief statement of
my difculty with Chomskyan linguis-
tics, focused essentially on one central
point, I proceed to explore the relation-
ship, if any, between the Chomskyan
and Wittgensteinian views of language.
Human Faculty of Language
Central to Chomskys linguistics is the
hypothesis that there is a human faculty
of language; that we are born with it;
Ramaswamy R Iyer (ramaswamy.iyer@gmail.
com) is with the Centre for Policy Research and
is better known for his extensive writings on
issues related to water.
COMMENTARY
november 2, 2013 vol xlviii no 44 EPW Economic & Political Weekly
24
that it is a biological feature. Chomsky
thinks that this is a species-characteristic
common to all humans, i e, that human
beings come equipped with a minimal
language-facilitating structure and basic
principles (linguistic universals) in the
mind. In this view, the lexical element
has to come from outside. So Chomskyan
linguistics isolates grammar from lan-
guage and puts it in the mind, thus privi-
leging grammar or structure, treating it
as the core of language.
Chomskyan linguistics is concerned
only with language as a mental faculty,
i e, the architecture or paradigm that is
in the mind, which, at the individual
level, is I language or IL, and at the
species level, is Universal Grammar or
UG. Languages in the world (English,
Japanese, Hindi, etc), not being in the
mind or leading to it, are of no theoreti-
cal interest to the Chomskyan linguist;
they are merely social phenomena. Ling-
uistics, then, is not the study of lang-
uages, but the study of the mental
faculty of language.
Grammar in the mind does not
mean grammar in the ordinary sense.
From a structural analysis of languages,
the linguist arrives at certain rules or
principles; generalises and simplies
them; and reduces them to certain very
basic principles, or linguistic univer-
sals. It is grammar in this sense that
Chomsky puts in the mind and identies
with the human language faculty; it is
this innate faculty that (according to the
Chomskyans) enables a child to acquire
its rst language rapidly. What are these
linguistic universals? Two of them, for
instance, are recursion and structure-
dependence (of rules). We need not go
into these in detail here. The theory is
that given such an innate paradigm in
the mind, we are able to acquire our rst
language easily and rapidly.
Mystery of Language
I have serious difculties with the above.
It is not the idea of an inborn human
capacity for language that I am ques-
tioning, or even the description of that
capacity as a faculty, but what Chomsky
puts into the mind. Chomskyan linguis-
tics nds a great mystery in the allegedly
rapid acquisition of the rst language by
a child and seeks to explain it by saying
that the necessary paradigm is there in
the mind; it does not talk about the
much greater mystery of language.
The quintessence of language its
central mystery is the creation of
meaning through the use of signs (oral
sounds, or hand gestures in the case of
the deaf-mute). We can perhaps conceive
of language without transformational rules
or recursion or structure-dependence;
but without meaning there is no language.
Lexicon and structure together create
meaning; we cannot split the two and
put the latter in the mind and the former
in the world, as Chomskyan linguistics
does. Grammar in the mind, if it exists,
does not explain language in the world.
The language faculty, if there is one,
has to be a faculty for the totality of
language, i e, a faculty of meaning, not
just structure. That is the core of my
critique of Chomskyan linguistics.
Incidentally, grammar in the mind
was not a discovery or empirical nding;
it was a deduction from the theory of a
mental faculty of language. Surprised by
the ease with which a child picks up its
rst language, and by the fact that the
child learns to avoid certain errors with-
out actually committing them and being
corrected, we think that there must be
something in the mind to explain this.
As that something in the mind cannot
be specic lexicons or even specic
gram mars (English, German, etc), we
postulate a generalised paradigm; and
we put that into the mind and call it the
mental faculty of language. Holding that
theory, we look for commonalities of a
very general kind among the languages
of the world, and come up with features
such as recursion, structure-depend-
ence, etc. In this desperate search for
structural commonalities (linguistic
univer sals), we overlook the one lin-
guistic universal that stares us in the
face, namely, meaning, i e, the use of
words or gestures or other signs to make
sense to ourselves or others. Once we
see that grammar in the mind cannot ex-
plain language in the world, the whole
edice a mental faculty in a literal
sense, an architecture or paradigm in
the mind, universal grammar, I lan-
guage, etc collapses. We are left with
two things: the probability that we are
born with some kind of a capacity for
language, and the existence of actual
natural languages. What that capacity
consists in, and how it leads to actual
languages in the world, are matters for
fresh study.
Wittgensteinian View
Let me proceed now to the question of
the relationship, if any, between the
Wittgensteinian and Chomskyan views
of language, which I have been thinking
about for long. It is well known that
Wittgenstein moved away from the pic-
ture theory of language stated in the
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, on to the
position of the Blue Book Brown Book
period (the meaning of a word is the
technique of its use), and on to the com-
plexities of Philosophical Investigations.
However, right through all these changes
the therapeutic view of philosophy as a
clarier and rescuer of the mind from
bewitchment by language remained. We
perplex ourselves with misleading meta-
phors or analogies, tend to take gram-
matical or tautological statements (i e,
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Economic & Political Weekly EPW november 2, 2013 vol xlviii no 44
25
statements about language use) as state-
ments about the world, and so on. This
does not happen in the ordinary use of
language; it happens when language
becomes self-conscious, as it does in
metaphysical discussions.
The task of philosophy is to analyse
such statements, clear up the muddle,
and rescue the mind from bewilderment.
As Wittgenstein said, it is the task of
philosophy to shew the y out of the
y-bottle.
2
The problem then dis -
appe ars. However, the underlying un-
certainties and anxieties may remain.
None of this has anything to do with
Chomskys linguistics. It is clear that
Wittgenstein was essentially concerned
with language-in-use, the language games
that we play, the perplexities that we
create for ourselves. Chomsky, on the
other hand, is concerned with language
as a human faculty and what it tells us
about how the human mind is consti-
tuted. On this understanding, there is
neither contradiction nor complementa-
rity between Wittgensteins philosophy
and Chomskys linguistics; they are
doing different things.
Difference in Ideas
Why then does the impression of a con-
tradiction arise? The explanation is that
Wittgenstein dismisses mental events as
a constituent of meaning and denies the
possibility of a private language, whereas
in Chomskyan linguistics private language
(language-in-the-mind or I language)
is not only possible, but is in fact, the
proper subject of linguistics.
Is a private language possible? The
answer depends on ones denition of
language. If one thinks that communi-
cation is central to language, i e, if one
views language as something that hap-
pens between people, as Wittgenstein
did, then by denition there can be no
private language.
3
On the other hand,
if one thinks, as Chomsky does, that
communication is not central to lan-
guage (though language is indeed used
for communication), and that language
is the expression of thought,
4
then
private language is not a contradiction
in terms.
5

What is involved here is not so much a
contradiction between Wittgenstein and
Chomsky as a difference in the idea of
language. To Wittgenstein, language
meant English, German, etc, i e, the
actual languages in use in the world (or
the imaginary dialogues that he con-
structed as examples), i e, E-languages
in Chomskyan terminology. On the other
hand, Chomsky is essentially interested
in what he called I-language (internal,
individual language, regarded as a mental
object). He uses natural languages only
as a means of studying one postulated
mental faculty, namely, the language
faculty, and through it the human
mind. Consider the following quotations:
(1) Chomsky (quoting with approval a
traditional view): language is a mirror
of mind;
6
and (2) Wittgenstein: Our
language can be seen as an ancient city:
a maze of little streets and squares, of
old and new houses, and of houses with
additions from various periods; and this
surrounded by a multitude of new bor-
oughs with straight regular streets and
uniform houses.
7
And to imagine a lan-
guage means to imagine a form of life
(ibid: 19). These are clearly two differ-
ent ways of seeing language.
Conclusions
Both Wittgenstein and Chomsky are apt
to overstate their respective positions.
Wittgenstein may be right in saying that
mental explanations of meaning do
not help, but he goes too far in his
dismissal of mental images and the like,
which could almost be interpreted (or
misinterpreted) as denial. Chomsky may
be right in postulating a human capacity
or faculty for language, but goes too far
in reifying it as I language, assigning
centrality to it, and dismissing natural
languages (English, Japanese, etc) as
nebulous and not t subjects for theo-
retical study.
Speaking personally, I nd the Wittgen-
steinian view of language richer and more
illuminating; by contrast, Chomskyan
linguistics seems reductionist, as it virtu-
ally identies language with grammar,
and denes linguistics narrowly, refus-
ing that name to many different kinds of
language study. With its focus on what
(according to it) is in the mind, it ignores
what is in the world, namely, the actual
languages. It has no interest in the use of
language and no concern with language
as communication. As mentioned earlier,
it has nothing to say about the central
mystery of language, namely, using signs
to create meaning. Chomsky does indeed
recognise the creative use of language,
but it forms no part of his linguistics,
and he fails to see that language itself is
a manifestation of human creativity. In
fact, that creativity is denied or down-
graded by treating language as some-
thing we are born with a biological
given. Chomsky will doubtless dismiss
this statement as not coherent, but
there it is, for whatever it is worth.
I wish to conclude this article by reaf-
rming my profound admiration and
respect for Noam Chomsky. Adapting
the words of Caliban
8
to benign pur-
pose, may I say to him you (and a few
others) taught me to think about lan-
guage and my prot ont is, I have learnt
how to argue.
Notes
1 Language and Grammar: Some Reections on
Chomskyan Linguistics, Journal of the Indian
Council of Philsophical Research, Vol XXVIII,
No 3, pp 55-88.
2 Philosophical Investigations, 309 available at:
http:// topologicalmedialab. net/xinwei/ classes/
readings/Wittgenstein/pi_94-138_239-309.
html
3 Of course, if I were the last surviving member
of a language community, I may continue to
think or keep a diary in that language; one
may perhaps describe it as a private language;
but with no one else to understand it, it is not
really a language, at any rate not a living
one, though scholars may study it as a dead
language.
4 Noam Chomsky, Reections on Language
(Fontana, California: Collins), 1976, pp 56-67.
5 However, there are some difculties here. Let
us suppose that I think thoughts to myself in
English or Tamil or Hindi. If I spoke those
thoughts aloud, people will understand me. If
those same thoughts were uttered by someone
else to me, I would understand them. That is
what makes those thoughts language. If I
spoke my thoughts aloud and no one under-
stood them, would one still call my utterance
language? When I think to myself with no audi-
ence to hear me, I may not be communicating
to anyone, but I am using a public language
privately; it is its public nature that makes it
language. That is, of course, a Wittgensteinian
view; Chomsky would disagree. Another hypo-
thetical possibility is that I devise a language
and keep it to myself; I may think thoughts in
that language or keep a diary in it; but in what
sense can one describe it as a language? That
again is a Wittgensteinian question.
6 Chomsky, op cit, p 4.
7 Wittgenstein, op cit, p 18.
8 Caliban to Prospero: You Taught Me Language;
and My Prot Ont Is I Know How to Curse,
Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act 1, scene 2.