Reviewing the language instinct debate, this article identifies generativist views with the baby's proverbial bathwater. Suggests that instead of analyzing language into form-based units, it should be treated as an aspect of social life deriving from a capacity to contextualize experience. (Author/VWL)

Examines the innate faculties that underlie linguistic competence, especially syntactic competence, and proposes a theory of these faculties which accounts for the complexities of language and the evolution of human language. (AM)