Bull. Hiroshima Inst. Tech. Research Vol.51（2017）17-24

ArticleChomsky’s I-language and E-language
Naoki ARAKI＊（Received Nov. 1, 2016）

Abstract
Language has been thought to be the object of linguistics. But Noam Chomsky insists that language is a useless notion for linguistic science. He argues that linguistics should be concerned withgrammar. He renames language and grammar, externalized language (E-language) and internalized
language (I-language) respectively. According to Chomsky, E-language (language) is something abstract externalized from the actual apparatus of our mind and I-language (grammar) is the physicalmechanism of our brain. If we are endowed with Universal Grammar (UG) at birth and get I-language after parameters built in UG are set one way or another and I-language generates E-language,
then I-language will be the object of linguistic science. But if there is nothing but language (E-language) spoken or written around us and grammar (I-language) is regularity derived from language(E-language), then we will have a quite different story. In other words, language spoken or written
around us will be the object of linguistic science.
Key Words: language, grammar, E-language, I-language.

Introduction

1. The Inversion of Language and Grammar

Usually we take language as something writtenor spoken in our daily life. Language is thought to besomething existent and grammar is considered something abstract like regularity derived from language.
So, unlike language, grammar does not exist as language does. But Chomsky insists that language does
not exist but it is grammar that is existent. He argues
that language is something externalized from ourbrain and grammar is the physical mechanism of ourbrain. Then he terms language“externalized language(E-language)”and grammar“internalized language(I-language)”respectively.
In this paper, we consider why Chomsky thinksthat language is something abstract and grammar
does exist and why he names language E-language,
and grammar I-language respectively.

Chomsky insists that the notion of language is
not clear and not well-deﬁned in linguistic science.
He takes dialects of German and Dutch for an example illustrating this:＊＊＊In colloquial usage we say that German is one
language and Dutch another, but some dialects ofGerman are more similar to Dutch dialects than toother, more remote dialects of German.
(Chomsky 1980: 217)
Here, Chomsky claims that the very notion ofGerman or Dutch is not scientiﬁc because of the factthat some dialects of German are more similar tosome dialects of Dutch than other dialects of German. This example of German and Dutch is repeatedin Chomsky’s other work (Chomsky 2000: 48-49)
when he criticizes Michael Dummett.1

Department of Information Systems and Management, Faculty of Applied Information Science, Hiroshima Institute of Technology,
Hiroshima 731-5193, Japan. E-mail: n.araki.gm@it-hiroshima.ac.jp― 17 ―Naoki ARAKI

Furthermore, Chomsky refers to various dialects
of Chinese and Romance languages such as French,
Italian, Spanish, and so on:grammar was considered to describe the regularity oflanguage as phenomena. In other words, language
took precedence over grammar. But Chomsky completely reversed this relationship between language
and grammar:

We say that Chinese is a language with many dialects and that French, Italian, and Spanish are different languages. But the diversity of the Chinese“dialects”is roughly comparable to that of the Romance languages.
(Chomsky 1980: 217)

Language↓

Grammar(Before Chomsky)

Again, Chomsky insists that the notions of Chinese, French, Italian, and Spanish mean nothing scientiﬁc and objective due to the fact that dialects ofChinese are as diverse as Romance languages. The
same idea as this is discussed in Chomsky (1988:
37)2. This means that political boundaries and institutions make real the notions of German and Dutch or
those of Chinese, French, Italian, and Spanish. If thenotion of language is not clear, as Chomsky insists,
what will make linguistic science possible?
To answer this question, Chomsky assumes anideal speaker-hearer’s knowledge of the language to
be its grammar, in an ideal homogenous speech community without any dialect variations:

Grammar→↓Language(Chomsky)

Now the notion of language is not clear, but language has become what grammar generates. It is notlanguage but grammar that is crystal clear. Regarding this reverse, Chomsky looks back on those days(around 1980) at a discussion with Riny Huybregts
and Henk van Riemsdijk, saying:[⋮] it seems obvious, when you think about it,that the notion language is a much more abstract notion than the notion of grammar. The reason is thatgrammars have to have a real existence, that is, there
is something in your brain that corresponds to thegrammar. [⋮] But there is nothing in the real world
corresponding to language. In fact it could very wellturn out that there is no intelligible notion of language.
(Chomsky 1982: 107)

Let us refer to this representation of the knowledge of these ideal speaker-hearers as the grammarof the language.
(Chomsky 1980: 220)

Here, Chomsky is sure that grammar really exists, that is to say, there is something in the brain,
which corresponds to grammar but this is not thecase with language. He insists that grammar is clear
but language is obscure, inverting the idea that thenotion of language is clear and the notion of internally represented grammar is suspect:

So Chomsky’s grammar is rules and principles
in an ideal speaker-hearer’s mind. In this respect, we
can say that his or her grammar is internalized, thatis,“internalized grammar.”As we shall discuss later inmore detail, this“internalized grammar”is renamed“internalized language (I-language).”If we define
grammar, as Chomsky does,“language”will be sentences described by grammar and the latter“generates”the former. This leads to an idea that althoughgrammar is ﬁnite, language which grammar produces
is inﬁnite.
Then, what will Chomsky’s claim be if we compare it with the traditional relationship between language and grammar? Before Chomsky, it wasthought that first of all, language existed as a clear
and concrete object (for example, real utterances),
not as an obscure one as Chomsky insists. Therefore,

This is the point I discussed in Rules and Representations [published in 1980] in a somewhat different context. It was mainly a debate with philosophers
who feel that the notion of language is somehow
clear and the notion of internally represented grammar is somehow suspect. It seems to me that it is actually the other way around. The notion of internally
represented grammar is quite clear, [⋮] there must be
such an object [grammar] and what it might be likeis quite clear, I think. On the other hand, the concept― 18 ―

Chomsky’s I-language and E-languageof language is very obscure, and it is not obviousthat there is any intelligible or signiﬁcant notion.
(Chomsky 1982: 108)

and are not mutually intelligible with others that wecall“German.”(Chomsky 1986: 15)
These are the same problems as“the diversity ofChinese dialects and Romance languages”and“thesimilarity of dialects of German to those of Dutch,”which are discussed in Chomsky (1980: 217). Again,
Chomsky insists that the notions of Chinese, Romance
languages such as French, Italian, Spanish and also
those of Dutch, German are sociopolitical, not scientific and objective. Furthermore, he goes on to saythat the commonsense notion of language also has anormative-teleological element:

The same idea as this is mentioned by NorbertHornstein in Chomsky (2005: xxxii-xxxvi).3 But on
the other hand, Chomsky excludes a society where a
mixture of two languages is spoken just like the Russian society depicted in Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace(1863-1869):
We exclude, for example, a speech communityof uniform speakers, each of whom speaks a mixtureof Russian and French (say, an idealized version of
the nineteenth-century Russian aristocracy).
(Chomsky 1986: 17)

The commonsense notion [of language] also has
a normative-teleological element that is eliminatedfrom scientiﬁc approaches. [⋮] Consider the way wedescribe a child or a foreigner learning English. We
have no way of referring directly to what that person
knows: It is not English, nor is it some other languagethat resembles English. We do not, for example, saythat the person has a perfect knowledge of some language L, similar to English but still different from it.
What we say is that the child or foreigner has a“partial knowledge of English,”or is“on his or her way”
toward acquiring knowledge of English, and if theyreach the goal, they will then know English. Whether
or not a coherent account can be given of this aspectof the commonsense terminology, it does not seem tobe one that has any role in an eventual science of
language.
(Chomsky 1986: 16)

The reason for this is that two languages, for example, Russian and French are not thought to be
based on the same parameter settings of Universal
Grammar as each other. But in reality there are a lotof multilingual people and societies around theworld. In any case, in the final analysis, Chomsky
concludes:[⋮] the fundamental concepts are grammar andknowing a grammar, [⋮] language and knowing alanguage are derivative. [⋮] a grammar does not in
itself deﬁne a language [⋮] languages may not be recursively deﬁnable,(Chomsky 1980: 126)
2. Language versus Grammar and E-language

versus I-language

As we have seen, Chomsky reversed the relationship between language and grammar. In Chomsky(1986), he further develops his idea. First, Chomsky
points out that the traditional notion of language issociopolitical:
In the first place, the commonsense notion of
language has a crucial sociopolitical dimension. We
speak of Chinese as“a language,”although the various“Chinese dialects”are as diverse as the several
Romance languages. We speak of Dutch and Germanas two separate languages, although some dialects ofGerman are very close to dialects that we call“Dutch”

English which children or foreigners are learning,is neither English nor any other language which issimilar to English but different from it. In this sense,
the notion of English used here, is not scientiﬁc at all.
Chomsky names this commonsense-notion language“externalized language”(E-language). For example,
structural and descriptive linguistics and behavioral
psychology tended to consider language as“a collection of actions, or utterances, or linguistic forms(words, sentences) paired with meanings”or“a systemof linguistic forms or events.”Also Saussurean structuralism interpreted langue as“a system of sounds
and an associated system of concepts.”Moreover,language was, for Bloomﬁeld,“the totality of utter-― 19 ―Naoki ARAKI

ances that can be made in a speech community.”David Lewis deﬁned language as“a paring of sentences
and meanings over an inﬁnite range.”According toChomsky, these notions of language above are all
externalized language (E-language) in the sense thatthey are understood independently of properties ofmind/brain. This leads to an idea that grammar is“acollection of descriptive statements”concerning Elanguage, or“the actual or potential speech event.”
Then, what is the relationship between grammar andE-language?

ized grammar. The rules and principles in a humanbeing’s mind, according to Chomsky, are physical anda matter of truth and falsity without a doubt. Chomsky names this internalized grammar,“internalized
language (I-language).”In other words, he renames
language and grammar, the relationship between
which he reversed in Chomsky (1980), E-language
and I-language respectively:

Language↓

Grammar(Before Chomsky)

The E-language is now understood to be the real
object of study. Grammar is a derivative notion; thelinguist is free to select the grammar one way or another as long as it correctly identiﬁes the E-language.
Apart from this consideration, questions of truth andfalsity do not arise.
(Chomsky 1986: 20)(1980)
Grammar→↓Language(Chomsky)(1986)
I-language→↓

E-language(Renamed)Thus, grammar versus language (1980) becomes
I-language versus E-language (1986). Chomsky deﬁnes I-language as follows5:

Here, Chomsky thinks that if language is E-language, grammar will be its description and not a matter of truth and falsity as long as grammar correctly
describes E-language. For example, Chomsky refers
to Quine, who thinks that it is senseless to take one
grammar rather than another to be“correct”:

The I-language, then, is some element of the mindof the person who knows the language, acquired by
the learner, and used by the speaker-hearer.
(Chomsky 1986: 22)
As a matter of fact, I-language exists in the human brain as a physical mechanism in the same way
as grammar deﬁned in Chomsky (1980)6:

Quine, for example, has argued that it is senselessto take one grammar rather than another to be“correct”if they are extensionally equivalent, characterizing the same E-language, for him a set of expressions(Quine, 1972).
(Chomsky 1986: 20)4[⋮] I-language, [⋮] the system of knowledge oflanguage attained and internally represented in themind/brain.
(Chomsky 1986: 24)

Furthermore, Chomsky takes up Lewis’s doubtthat a grammar G is used by a population P but another grammar G’ is not:[⋮] a person’s knowledge of a particular language[the I-language] [⋮] a state of the mind, realized insome arrangement of physical mechanisms.
(Chomsky 1986:40)

And Lewis doubts that there is any way“to makeobjective sense of the assertion that a grammar G isused by a population P whereas another grammar G’,
which generates the same language as G, is not.”(Chomsky 1986: 20)

If I-language generates E-language, then the relationship between phonetics (sounds) and phonology(phonemes) will be reversed, as Chomsky insists, inthe same way as that between language and grammar7:

Here, emerges grammar which was defined by
Chomsky before. It consists of rules and principles
in the mind of an ideal speaker-hearer in an ideal
speech community. In other words, it is an internal-

The latter [the phonological] representations are
not derived from the speech sounds by analytic procedures of segmentation, classiﬁcation, extraction ofphysical features, and so forth, [⋮] The I-language,― 20 ―

Chomsky’s I-language and E-language

incorporating the rules that form the representations(Ⅱ) [the phonological representation] and the rulesthat relate them to (Ⅲ) [the phonetic representations],[⋮](Chomsky 1986: 43)

knowledge of his or her language and performance isthe actual use of competence in real situations. Under
the idealization mentioned above, performance is adirect reﬂection of competence. In other words, competence is the underlying system of rules or a mental
reality underlying actual behavior. Here is the originof Chomsky’s idea that I-language generates E-language because competence is equivalent to I-language
and performance is to E-language and so competence
generates performance.8
What is more, Chomsky insists that competence
is innate and common to all individuals of the humanspecies:

So the relationship between sounds and phonemes
is reversed just as that between language and grammaris:Language

Grammar

↓

→

↓

↓

→

↓

GrammarSoundsPhonemes(phonetics) (phonology)↓→↓

Language

Phonemes
Sounds(phonology) (phonetics)(Before(Chomsky)Chomsky)(Before(Chomsky)Chomsky)

Suppose that a child with the human language
faculty [Universal Grammar] as a part of its innate
endowment is placed in a social environment [⋮].
The language faculty selects relevant data from theevents taking place in the environment; making useof these data in a manner determined by its internal
structure, the child constructs a language [I-language],[⋮]. This language is now incorporated in the mind.
When the process is completed, the language [I-language] constitutes the mature state attained by thelanguage faculty. The person now speaks and understands this language.
(Chomsky 1988: 35-36)

According to Chomsky, phonemes are not derived from sounds, but on the contrary, phonemes
generate sounds.
3. Why I-language (grammar) generates E-

language (language)First of all, Chomsky declares that linguistic theory is concerned with an ideal speaker-listener in a
homogeneous speech-community:
Linguistic theory is concerned primarily with an
ideal speaker-listener, in a completely homogeneous
speech-community, who knows its language perfectly and is unaffected by such grammatically irrelevant
conditions as memory limitations, distractions, shifts
of attention and interest, and errors (random or characteristic) in applying his knowledge of the languagein actual performance.
(Chomsky 1965: 3)

I-language is completed by setting built-in parameters of Universal Grammar and starts to generate
E-language. It is safe to say that Chomsky’s development of logic is the same as Saussure’s in that rules ornorm produces phenomena. In the case of Chomsky,
the rule system called I-language generates phenomena called E-language, in the case of Saussure, language norm called langue produces phenomena called
parole.

In our daily life, we are always making mistakes
when talking with other people and writing something.
So Chomsky idealizes a language user as an ideal
speaker-listener to make linguistic theory possible.
Moreover, he assumes a homogeneous speech-community, to which the ideal speaker-listener belongs,
although speech-communities are always heterogeneous. Furthermore, he distinguishes competence fromperformance. This distinction resembles Saussure’s
langue and parole. Competence is the speaker-hearer’s

Conclusion
As we have seen, Chomsky’s ideas are quite different from ours. He insists that it is not E-language(language) but I-language (grammar) that linguisticscience is concerned with. If we are endowed with
Universal Grammar at birth and get I-language withparameter-settings completed and I-language generates E-language, as Chomsky argues, then linguisticscience will be concerned with I-language. But if we― 21 ―Naoki ARAKI

are not born with Universal Grammar, we will have a
different story. There is nothing but language writtenor spoken around us and we derive from it regularity
which is called grammar. Unlike Saussure’s and Chomsky’s ideas, a symphony is not a musical score but
actual performance itself just as chess is not a rule ofchess but moves of chess pieces.9 In this respect,
Chomsky’s idea is quite similar to Saussure’s. It is safe
to say that the two linguists’ views of language arevery much the same although they have a few differences.

Notes
1 According to Chomsky, Dummett argues that

Dutch and German exist and are different languages:[⋮] consider Dummett’s argument [⋮] that the“fundamental sense”in which we must understand theconcept of language is the sense in which Dutch andGerman are different languages (he gives a different
example, but the point is the same), each of them aparticular social practice“in which people engage,”a practice that“is learned from others and is constituted by rules which it is part of social custom to follow”(p. 473). Thus Dutch and German exist in this“fundamental sense,”“independently of any particular speakers”; every individual speaker“has”such alanguage, but typically has only a“partial, and partially erroneous, grasp of the language.”(Chomsky 2000:
48) Dummett’s idea that language is social, learnable
and exists independently of speakers who have a partial knowledge of the language reminds us of Saussure’s view of language (Saussure 1983). Moreover,Chomsky says, criticizing Dummett’s argument: Theconcept of language that Dummett takes to be essential involves complex and obscure sociopolitical,
historical, cultural, and normative-teleological elements. Such elements may be of some interest for thesociology of identiﬁcation within various social andpolitical communities and the study of authority structure, but they [such elements] plainly lie far beyond
any useful inquiry into the nature of language or thepsychology of users of language. (Chomsky 2000: 49)
Thus, Chomsky does not accept Dummett’s idea of
language at all.
2 Chomsky says: We speak of Chinese as a language,
whereas Spanish, Catalan, Portuguese, Italian, and theother Romance languages are different languages. But
the so-called dialects of Chinese are as varied as the
Romance languages. We call Dutch a language andGerman a different language, but the variety of German spoken near the Dutch border can be understoodby speakers of Dutch who live nearby, though not by
speakers of German in more remote areas. The term“language”as used in ordinary discourse involves obscure sociopolitical and normative factors. It is doubtful that we can give a coherent account of how theterm is actually used. (Chomsky 1988 : 37 ) Here,
Chomsky is referring to the example of Dutch andGerman again.
3 Norbert Hornstein says: Interestingly,“language”
is not a particularly important notion. [⋮] it is understood that the notion of“language”has a merely expository function and has no theoretical standing. [⋮]the notion of“language”corresponds to nothing real.
In this regard, languages contrast with grammars.
The latter exist in the minds of speakers. Thus, they
are part of the mind/brain and, hence, real. Languages
do not exist anywhere. (Chomsky 2005: xxxii-xxxiii)
Hornstein agrees on Chomsky’s idea of language andgrammar.
4 Hornstein says, defending Chomsky’s insistence:[⋮] Quine suggests that“it is senseless to say that if
two grammars generate the same language ⋮ then one
might be right and the other wrong.”Chomsky notesthat Quine presupposes that“for a given language
there may be many (in fact, inﬁnitely many) grammars.”The problem is that to make sense of thispoint we need to know what it means to be“given”alanguage. If a language consists of an inﬁnite set ofsentences, then it cannot be“given”except by specifying a set of rules that generate that set, i.e. a grammar.
Thus, one’s epistemological access to a language, if
it exists at all, must be via a grammar of some sortthat speciﬁes it in intension. Thus, Chomsky notes,
despite the common conception to the contrary,“when we move from grammar to language we aremoving a step further away from the mechanisms”
of the mind/brain that ontologically ground the notions. (Chomsky 2005: xxxiv)
5 Chomsky borrows his notion of I-language from
Otto Jespersen: [⋮] Otto Jespersen, who held that
there is some“notion of structure”in the mind of the― 22 ―

Chomsky’s I-language and E-language

speaker“which is definite enough to guide him inframing sentences of his own,”in particular,“freeexpressions”that may be new to the speaker and toothers. Let us refer to this“notion of structure”as an“internalized language”(I-language). (Chomsky 1986:
21-22) A code or a game is also taken up when I-language is explained: It should be noted that familiar
characterization of“language”as a code or a game
points correctly toward I-language, not the artiﬁcial
construct E-language. A code is not a set of representations but rather a speciﬁc system of rules that assigns
coded representations to message-representations.
Two codes may be different, although extensionallyidentical in the message-code pairings that they provide. Similarly, a game is not a set of moves but rather
the rule system that underlies them. The Saussurean
concept of langue, although far too narrow in conception, might be interpreted as appropriate in thisrespect. The same is true of Quine’s deﬁnition of alanguage as a“complex of present dispositions toverbal behavior”insofar as it focuses on some internal
state rather than E-language, although it is unacceptable for other reasons: Thus, two individuals who
speak the same language may differ radically in theirdispositions to verbal behavior, and if dispositions arecharacterized in terms of probability of response under given conditions, then it is impossible to identify
languages in these terms; and again, the fundamental
question of the use and understanding of new sentences is left without any explanation. Perhaps theclearest account is Jespersen’s in terms of the“notionof structure”that guides the speaker“in framing sentences of his own ⋮,”these being“free expressions.”(Chomsky 1986: 31-32)
6 So Chomsky insists that questions of truth and falsity arise for grammar: Taking language to be I-language,
the grammar would then be a theory of the I-language,
which is the object under investigation. And if, indeed,such a“notion of structure”exists, as Jespersen held,
then questions of truth and falsity arise for grammar
as they do for any scientiﬁc theory. (Chomsky 1986:
22)
7 For example, Chomsky claims that a rule of word
order is a rule of I-language: When we say that it is arule of English that objects follow verbs, as distinct
from the rule of Japanese that verbs follow objects, we― 23 ―

are not saying that this is a rule of some set of sentences or behaviors, but rather that it is a rule of a systemof rules, English, an I-language. (Chomsky 1986: 27)
Also Chomsky explains the relationship between Ilanguage and E-language, using the Constitution andchess: The rules of the language are not rules of someinﬁnite set of formal objects or potential actions but
are rules that form or constitute the language, like
Articles of the Constitution or rules of chess (not a
set of moves, but a game, a particular rule system).
(Chomsky 1986: 27-28)
8 Here is also the origin of Chomsky’s idea that Elanguage is not the object of linguistic science: Observed use of language [E-language] [⋮], may provide
evidence as to the nature of this mental reality [I-language], but surely cannot constitute the actual subject
matter of linguistics, if this is to be a serious discipline. (Chomsky 1965: 4)
9 Saussure says, assuming a symphony to be not its
performance but its musical score: The vocal organs
are as external to the language system as the electrical apparatus which is used to tap out the Morse
code is external to that code. Phonation, that is to say
the execution of sound patterns, in no way affects thesystem itself. In this respect one may compare a language [langue] to a symphony. The symphony has areality of its own, which is independent of the way inwhich it is performed. The mistakes which musicians
may make in performance in no way compromisethat reality. (Saussure 1983: 18) Chomsky also says
the same as this, assuming chess to be not a set ofmoves but a rule system: The rules of the language
are not rules of some inﬁnite set of formal objects or
potential actions but are rules that form or constitutethe language, like Articles of the Constitution orrules of chess (not a set of moves, but a game, a particular rule system). (Chomsky 1986: 27-28)

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