Universal Grammar and Linguistic Diversity

CALL FOR PAPERS  

March 30 – 31, 2026  

College of Fellows – Center for Interdisciplinary and Intercultural Studies, University of Tübingen

Universal Grammar and Linguistic Diversity  

The idea of Universal Grammar has dominated the field of linguistics in the last decades, while at the same time having undergone various reformulations, particularly in the writings of Chomsky. Chomsky’s idea of Universal Grammar has been developed in the framework of generative linguistics and entails the concept of an innate and universal faculty of language, which allows infants to grasp the universal principles and patterns that structure phrases of any possible human language. Despite the prominence of this idea in the field of contemporary linguistics, it has been abundantly criticised and is still a bone of contention in linguistics, cognitive science, and philosophy.  

While various types of critiques have been leveled against this idea, such as its lack of conceptual clarity and falsifiability, or its false assumption regarding an innate modular faculty of language, this workshop will focus on one particular critique, stemming primarily from linguistic typology, which highlights the absence of any linguistic universals that can be empirically observed.  

Among others, the following questions will be addressed:  

• Is the alleged absence of any linguistic universal (Evans & Levinson 2009) sufficient for delegitimising the idea of Universal Grammar? Couldn’t we instead invoke two distinct investigation levels (Ludlow 2011), which might not be incompatible?  

• Can the idea of Universal Grammar be adjusted to the latest developments in linguistic typology (Baker 2011) or are the epistemological methods of linguistic typology and generative linguistics fundamentally incommensurable (Xie 2023)?  

• Are the results from linguistic typology, particularly those that deny the universality of recursion (Pullum 2020; Futler et al. 2016; Everett 2012), based on an undisputable methodology?  

• What is the explanatory value of the idea of Universal Grammar? Shouldn’t linguistic diversity, rather than its supposed unity, be explained (Dąbrowska 2015)?    

This interdisciplinary workshop will gather both linguists and philosophers.  

Confirmed Speakers:

Daniel L. Everett (Bentley University)

Paul Pietroski (Rutgers University)

Friederike Moltmann (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

Daniel Hole (University of Stuttgart)

Gerhard Jäger (University of Tübingen)  

Harald Baayen (University of Tübingen)

Application Information:

You are welcome to submit an abstract (300 – 500 words) by December 10, 2025  

Notification of acceptance: 

December 15, 2025  

Please send your abstracts to: [email protected]  

Workshop Organizer:  Veronica Cibotaru (University of Tübingen)