[Fs. Winter] (Berlin: Mouton, 2003), 241-244. THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF THE LINGUISTIC PARASITE

Whatever these difficulties may be, and whatever their biologi-cal origin, it is clear that, at the level of concepts, categorization is carried out neither by rigorous, nor by logical, nor by univer-sal criteria. Indeed, there may be no general means by which categories are formed at this level. (Edelman 1987: 246) The philosophy of language comes in three varieties. 1. The functionalist’s view: linguistic forms are instruments used to convey meaningful elements. This is the basis of European structuralism. 2. The formalist’s view: linguistic forms are abstract structures which can be filled with meaningful elements. This is the basis of generative grammar. 3. The parasitologist’s view: linguistic forms are vehicles for the reproduction of meaningful elements. This is the view which I advocated twenty years ago in the Festschrift for Werner Winter’s 60th birthday (1985). Here I intend to discuss the evolutionary origin and the physiological nature of the linguistic parasite