On the Autonomy of Knowledge of Language

Robert Stainton (University of Western Ontario), Christopher Viger (University of Western Ontario), Arthur Sullivan (Memorial University of Newfoundland)

Some of the human mind appears to be modular, with special-purpose faculties that operate only over a specific domain. Vision is a notorious example. In this paper, we begin by considering what it would mean to say that knowledge of language is modular in that way. Having explained what the debate has been about, we defend a properly Canadian middle ground, according to which knowledge of language is not wholly modular, but is not like the wholly non-modular knowledge that people have of expensive red bicycles.