Linguistic evidence and mental representations (introspective linguistic data)

Cognitive linguists (and other linguists, notably generative linguists) argue for certain mental representations of grammatical and lexical knowledge based on introspective linguistic data. It is argued here that the introspective linguistic data can only restrict the range of possible mental representations a priori, that is, wilhout evidence from actual usage or psycholinguistic experiments; one cannot determinately posit a particular model of mental representation without evidence beyond introspection. Four points on a probable continuum of mental representations are described, from the most specific representation to the most general: independent entries (or homonymy), polysemy, (grammatical) derivational rules and pragmatic rules (or monosemy). The introspective evidence that can exclude one or more of these models is described, and other intermediate models are discussed. Essentially, grammatical and semantic idiosyncrasies are evidence for excluding the more general models; but grammatical and semantic generality is not a priori evidence for excluding the more specific models. The reason for a probable continuum of models of mental representation is that dynamically, mental representations of linguistic knowledge change, for a single Speaker and for a speech Community over time. © 1998, Walter de Gruyter. All rights reserved.