I just read an announcement for a new book: What Counts as Evidence in Linguistics, Edited by Martina Penke and Anette Rosenbach, and published this year by John Benjamins. According to the description of the book on the LingusitList, this book focuses on the innateness debate and shows how formal and functional approaches to linguistics have different perspectives on linguistic evidence. The three guiding questions for this volume are: What type of evidence can be used for innateness claims (or UG)?; What is the content of such innate features (or UG)?; and, How can UG be used as a theory guiding empirical research?
This book will be on my list of books to read after I finish my MA Thesis.
The table of contents lists the following articles:
- What counts as evidence in linguistics? An introduction, by Martina Penke and Anette Rosenbach
- Typological evidence and Universal Grammar, by Frederick J. Newmeyer
- Remarks on the relation between language typology and Universal Grammar: Commentary on Newmeyer, by Mark Baltin
- Does linguistic explanation presuppose linguistic description?, by Martin Haspelmath
- Remarks on description and explanation in grammar: Commentary on Haspelmath, by Judith Aissen and Joan Bresnan
- Author’s response, by Martin Haspelmath
- From UG to Universals: Linguistic adaptation through iterated learning, by Simon Kirby, Kenny Smith and Henry Brighton
- Form, meaning and speakers in the evolution of language: Commentary on Kirby, Smith and Brighton, by William Croft
- Author’s response, by Simon Kirby, Kenny Smith and Henry Brighton
- Why assume UG?, by Dieter Wunderlich
- What kind of evidence could refute the UG hypothesis? Commentary on Wunderlich, by Michael Tomasello
- Author’s response: Is there any evidence that refutes the UG hypothesis?, by Dieter Wunderlich
- A question of relevance: Some remarks on standard languages, by Helmut Weiß
- The Relevance of Variation: Remarks on Weiß’s Standard-Dialect-Problem, by Horst J. Simon
- Author’s response, by Helmut Weiß
- Universals, innateness and explanation in second language acquisition, by Fred R. Eckman
- ‘Internal’ versus ‘external’ universals: Commentary on Eckman, by Lydia White
- Author’s response: ‘External’ universals and explanation in SLA, by Fred R. Eckman
- What counts as evidence in historical linguistics?, by Olga Fischer
- Abstraction and performance: Commentary on Fischer, by David W. Lightfoot
- Author’s response, by Olga Fischer