The burden of syntax

A theorist's responsibility for the theory he proposes is inseparable from his responsibility for the language in which the theory is expressed. Language science is no different in this regard. Theorists agree that language is the product of a population, and individual humans participate in linguistic social activity. But disagreements about typology cannot be mediated solely by aprioristic considerations. It has become a norm of scientific discourse that theoretical idiom is to be vindicated empirically. Evidence is needed both to serve as common ground and to make disciplined inferences about the individual sequencing demands of colloquy. I take up Philip Lieberman's proposal that circuits projecting to and from the basal ganglia could underlie aspects of motor, linguistic, and perhaps even cognitive sequencing. The evidence illustrates how the study of individual sequencing requirements might proceed without aprioristic typology.