The Literary Mind.pdf

164 THE LITERARY MIND
dog 'Harold,'" where a particular entity is given an arbitrary label. We are instead
discussing the projection of vast systems of narrative structure in such a way that
complex categories of event correspond to grammatical categories of verb phrase.
We are discussing the projection of systems of perceiving events with temporal
focus and viewpoint to create systems of grammatical structure like tense. This is
not a matter of giving a particular object an arbitrary label but of projecting structural
categories to impart structural categories. Pinker and Bloom are thus assuming,
as part of their explanatory machinery, the existence of a robust mental capacity
to project one kind of thing onto another. In my view, they are right to do so.
They are wrong, however, in assuming that this mental capacity is exclusive to
language, rather than part of the mental capacity I call parable.
Pinker and Bloom imagine that the kind of conceptual information that is
mapped is propositional structure. This is a misemphasis rather than an error.
Story certainly involves propositional structure. The story structure of Mary throws
the stone quickly carries the propositional information The throwing is quick. But
basic grammatical constructions seem to come from basic stories, with agents
and actions and objects and patients and viewpoint and focus and so on, as Pinker
and Bloom seem implicitly to grant in their thumbnail sketches of the way grammar
"encodes" conceptual structure. These basic grammatical constructions that
arise from basic stories can secondarily be used for expressing lower-level propositional
structure such as "Grass is green."
Pinker and Bloom make it clear that they view their contribution as consisting
entirely of the argument that natural selection explains the origin of grammar.
They disavow any originality in their analyses of grammatical structures:
"Any one of them could have been lifted out of the pages of linguistic textbooks."
But if we lay aside Pinker and Bloom's argument about natural selection and look
instead at their actual work in sketching how conceptual structure is projected
to create grammatical structure, we see a treatment that appears to me (although
almost certainly not to them) not far out of accord with the view that grammar
arises from the projection of story.
The strong Chomskyan view of the origin of language asks us to believe that,
against inconceivable odds, genetic instruction arose for a highly complex and
sophisticated grammar organ, with no help from preexisting mental capacities
and no help from natural selection. It asks us to believe that an extremely complex
functional trait, language, is entirely genetic yet did not arise through the
only mechanism of evolutionary genetics known to produce extremely complex
functional traits, natural selection.
The astonishing unlikelihood of Chomsky's model of the origin of grammar
prompted Pinker and Bloom to argue that Chomsky is wrong. They embrace
Chomsky's picture in all respects except for their claim that natural selection is
responsible for the origin of grammar.