Linguistics

Grammatical Relations

Abstract

Human language can be studied bottom-up (corpus linguistics, neurolinguistics) and top-down (via conscious data creation and introspection as to grammaticality).   Creativity in language hinges on both law and liberty, on the freedom of the will and constraints thereof.  This paper focuses on the role of agency in language, and how our ability to learn and understand language is based not primarily on shared mechanics but rather agency-oriented concepts that we cannot not know.