The Syntax of Galileo: Reply to Ray Jackendoff

Abstract

In the opening paragraph of his response, Professor Jackendoff describes some ‘common’ responses to his theory as a series of ‘misunderstandings’. In the next paragraph, however, he acknowledges the most conspicuous misunderstanding in his book: “One distinction that was erroneously omitted from PiM concerns two senses of the term “syntax”. He then discusses broad and narrow definitions of the term. To my mind this tack of admitting, in the passive voice, a major deficiency also admits tacitly the main point of my review: If one allows the ‘broad’ definition of syntax as a common principle of orderly patterning in physical bodies, then one doesn’t need to posit a Universal Grammar. That at least was my thesis about a syntax based upon physical entities. In what follows, I shall follow his numbered headings in order to try to fix these misunderstandings.