Language Form and Language Function (Language, Speech, and Communication)

Rating:
Summary: Reconciling form and function
Review: This is an important contribution to the debate between linguists such as Chomsky who concentrate on form, and and those who focus on how language reflects function. As an established Chomskyan Newmeyer is hardly an unbiased participant, but one who takes unusual interest in how function may shape language.

Readers will need some background in linguistics to follow the arguments. Those who sympathise with functional approaches may be annoyed by his rejection of prototype theory, and may not be convinced by his 'deconstruction' of grammaticalization theory. Typologists should be aware (as many already are) of the problems he raises regarding language samples and second-hand data sources. Nevertheless the debate is a rewarding one to follow for linguists of either persuasion. Newmeyer sets stringent criteria for a convincing functional explanation in linguistics. To show that he is not merely setting the goalposts at an impossible angle, he accepts two lines of functional explanation which meet his test: iconicity, and the theory developed by John Hawkins which explains aspects of word order in terms of on-line language processing. Functionalists should see this as a challenge, while formalists should take note of how one leading exponent brings function into the picture.