Rit (Vísindafélag Íslendinga) - 01.06.1970, Page 289
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explanation of a linguistic form is the form underlying it.1
And its chief eíforts have been devoted to positing such un-
derlying forms. While this maxim may be open to misinter-
pretation like all maxims, it may nonetheless illustrate the
reason for the great concern with historical linguistics in the
nineteenth century. Historical linguists were attempting to
explain the data of language. By contrast, explanatory lin-
guistics of today seeks explanations through synchronic study.
The basis for its conclusions may cause it to appear com-
pletely different from the work of the past, though I will
return to this point below.
Moreover, besides its focus on explanation, linguistic study
is proclaimed to be our best available access to an under-
standing of how the mind functions. The hopes asserted for
linguistics, going beyond explanatory linguistics, may account
for the intense concern with our field today, for its impact
on other social sciences, notably psychology and anthropology,
and for the development of new disciplines such as psycho-
linguistics, which centers around the functioning of the mind,
the achievement of communication by means of language.2
One of the most impressive features of Nordic culture has
been the deep concern with language, with its relationship
to other human activities, even with cognitive processes. Sev-
eral years ago, when linguistics was narrowly defined, some
of these concerns might not have been considered linguistic.
But under today’s broader concept of linguistics, they may
^For a statement of this point of view, see Meillet 1937 :ix: ‘Le grammairien
qui étudie une langue indo-européenne, s’il ne connait pas la grammaire com-
parée, doit se résigner á Ia pure et simple constatation des faits, sans en jamais
tenter l’explication; car autrement il s’expose á expliquer á l’intérieur d’une
langue, et par des particularités propres á celle-ci, des faits antcrieurs á cette
langue et qui reconnaissent de tout autres causes.’ Chomsky’s relative ‘levels of
success as the levels of observational adequacy, descriþtive adequacy, and exþlanatory
adequacy, respectively’ may also be noted (1964:924).
2See, for example, such statements as the following in Chomsky 1968:25:
a system of propositions expressing the meaning of a sentence is produced in
the mind as the sentence is realized as a physical signal.’