Resumen

GIL, José María. Towards a Principle of Complementarity in Linguistics. RF [online]. 2007, vol.25, n.56, pp.7-46. ISSN 0798-1171.

Generative and systemic-functional theories may be conceived as scientific theories: they have confirmed hypotheses, they provide explanations, and based on these explanations, they make predictions. Nevertheless, both theories use incompatible assumptions about the same object: language. After analyzing the problem of confirmations and explanations in linguistics, this incompatibility will be treated in terms of “a principle of complementarity”: Language is, simultaneously, a “faculty of the mind” and a “product of culture,” but both aspects (the “mental” and the “cultural”) cannot be captured by any single theory.

Palabras clave : Linguistics; incompatibility; mind; culture; complementarity.