ABSTRACT
Two biological premises structure the form of modern linguistic theory. First, that there is a genetically transmitted, biological substrate that determines human linguistic ability. Second, that this biological substrate, the "fixed nucleus," that determineslinguistic "competence," is uniform throughout the species homo sapiens (Chomsky, 1980). The data that I will discuss are consistent with the first premise, but refute the second premise—that the biological linguistic substrate is uniform for all people.
