Topic 2

2. The creativity of linguistic knowledge

"Knowledge of language enables to combine sounds to form words, words to form phrases, and
phrases to form sentences" (Fromkin, Rodman & Hyams, 2006, p. 8). You cannot buy a
dictionary of any language with all the sentences of the language. No dictionary can list all the
possible sentences, which are infinite. Knowing language means being able produce new
sentences never spoken before and to understand sentences never heard before. The linguist
Noam Chomsky, one of the people most responsible for the modern revolution language and
cognitive science, refers to this ability as part of the creative aspect of language use. "Not every
speaker of language can create great literature, but you, all persons who know a language, can
and do create new sentences when you speak and understand new sentences created by others"
(Fromkin, Rodman & Hyams, 2006, p. 8).

In pointing out the creative aspect of language, Chomsky maybe a powerful argument against the
behaviorist view of language that prevailed in the first half of the twentieth century, which held
that language is set of learned responses to stimuli. While it is true that if someone steps a on our
toes we may automatically respond with scream or a grunt, this sounds are not part of language:

There are involuntary reactions to stimuli. After we reflexively cry out, we can then go on to say:
ʺThank you very much for stepping on my toes, because I was afraid I had elephantiasis and now
that I can feel them hurt I know I do not, ʺ or any one of an infinite number of sentences, because
the particular sentences we produce are not controlled by any stimulus (Fromkin, Rodman &
Hyams, 2006, p. 8).

Even some involuntary cries like ʺouch ʺare constrained by our own language system, as are the
filled pauses that are sprinkled throughout conversational speech, such aser, uh, andyou know
in English. The contain only the sounds found in the language. French speakers, for example,
often fill their pauses with the vowel sound that starts with their word for egg –oeuf –a sound
that does not occur in English.
Topic 3 (Is continuation of topic 2)

Our creative ability is not only reflected in what we say but also include our understanding of
new or novel sentences. Consider the following sentences: ʺDaniel Boone decided to become
pioneer because he dreamt pigeon-toed giraffes and cross-eyed elephant dancing in pink skirts
and green berets on the wind-swept plains of the Mid west. ʺ you may not believe the sentence;
you may question its logic; but you can understand it, although you probably never heard or read
it before now.

Knowledge of language, then makes it possible to understand and produce new sentences. If you
counted the number of sentences in this book that you have seen or heard before, the number
would be small. Next time you write an essay or a letter, see how many of your sentences are
new. Few are sentences are stored in your brain, to pulled out to fit some situations or matched
with some sentences that you heard. Novel sentences never spoken or heard before cannot be
stored in your memory.

Simple memorization of all the possible sentences in a language is impossible in principle. If for
every sentence in the language a longer sentence can be formed, then there is no limit to the
length of any sentence and therefore no limit to the number of sentence. In English you can say:

This is the house.

Or

This is the house that Jack built.

Or

This is the malt that lay in the house that Jack built.

Or

This is the dog that worried the cat that killed the rat that ate the malt that lay in the house
that Jack built.

And you need not stop there. How long, then, is this longest sentence? A speaker of English can
say:
 The old man came.

Or

The old, old, old, old, old man came.

How many ʺoldsʺ are too many? Seven? Twenty-three?

Adapted (Fromkin, Rodman & Hyams, 2006, p. 9).

It is true that the longer these sentences become, the less likely we would be to hear to say them.
A sentence with 276 occurrences of ʺoldʺ would be highly unlikely in either speech or writing,
even to describe Methuselah, but such sentence is theoretically possible. If you know English
you have the knowledge to add any number of adjectives as modifiers to noun.