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Article published In: Usage-based and Typological Approaches to Linguistic Units
Edited by Tsuyoshi Ono, Ritva Laury and Ryoko Suzuki
[Studies in Language 43:2] 2019
► pp. 281–300

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Linguistic units and their systems

Completeness, self-reference, and contingency

ORCiD logo with link | University Blue Quills
Published online: 13 November 2019
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/sl.16042.kre
Abstract
A theoretical discussion of units in linguistic theory would be, in a sense, incomplete without a discussion of the systems, whether overt or implied, that the units are associated with. This paper traces conceptualizations of units and their accompanying systems in several disciplines. We identify some important problems with rule-based accounts (Parsons, Talcott. 1937. The Structure of Social Action. New York: McGraw Hill.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) of social action and discuss the transition to non-rule-based theory afforded by ethnomethodology (e.g. Garfinkel, Harold. 1963. A conception of, and experiments with, ‘trust’ as a condition of stable concerted actions. In O. J. Harvey (ed.), Motivation and Social Interaction, 187–238. New York: Ronald Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, . 1967. Studies in Ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Heritage, John. 1984. Garfinkel and Ethnomethodology. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, . 2011. A Galilean Moment in Social Theory? Language, Culture and their Emergent Properties. Qualitative Sociology 34(1). 263–270. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). We draw direct parallels between these issues and analogous developments in mathematical logic (. 1992. On Formally Undecidable Propositions of Principia Mathematica and Related Systems. Trans. B. Meltzer, with Intro. by R. B. Braithwaite. New York: Dover.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) and philosophy of mind (Fodor, J. A. 1968. Psychological Explanation. New York: Random House.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, 1983. The Modularity of Mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Lucas, J. R. 1961. Minds, Machines and Gödel. Philosophy 361. 112–127. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Putnam, Hilary. 1960. Minds and machines. In Sidney Hook (ed.), Dimensions of Mind, 20–33. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, . 1967. The Nature of Mental States. In W. H. Capitan & D. D. Merrill (eds.), Art, Mind, and Religion, 51–58. Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar etc.), and argue that these stem directly from fundamental properties of a class of all formal systems which permit self-reference. We argue that, since these issues are architectural in nature, linguistic theory which postulates that linguistic units are the outputs of a consistent, self-referential, rule-based formal systems (e.g. Hauser, Marc D., Noam Chomsky & W. Tecumseh Fitch. 2002. The faculty of language: What is it, who has it, and how did it evolve? Science 2981. 1569–1579. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) will inevitably run into similar problems. This is further supported by examples from actual language use which, as a class, will elude any theoretical explanation grounded in such a system.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Social action, unit acts, interaction
  • 3.Systems and incompleteness
  • 4.Some deviant utterances
  • 5.Concluding remarks
  • Notes
  • References
References (46)
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