An odd couple: Chomsky and Quine on reducing the phoneme

Though typically viewed as if in diametrical opposition, W.V. Quine-arguably one of the most strident anti-mentalistic philosophers in contemporary philosophy of language-and Noam Chomsky have both explicitly defended the behavioral “paired-utterance test” as a non-semantic definition of basic phonemic equivalence. Indeed, consistent with some standard neo-Bloomfieldian reservations regarding semantics generally, and his own commitment to the autonomy of phonology, Chomsky's early rejection of a semantic-based phonology in favor of a behavioral reduction of phonemic equivalence is virtually indistinguishable from Quine's own intermittent behaviorist remarks on the phoneme. There are, of course, important philosophical, linguistic and even personal reasons for this seemingly odd convergence. Indeed, just as significant as the misleading claim to have provided a non-semantic criterion for basic phonological equivalence (given that native informants inevitably rely upon, albeit their own, semantic knowledge) is a linguistic historiography so concentrated so as to permit such a convergence between two towering figures in linguistics and the philosophy of language. The phoneme, in addition to dividing similar-minded linguists, could also unite otherwise incompatible language theorists too.