Magyar Nyelvőr

Bańczerowski, Janusz: Some remarks on the interpretation of the notion 'natural language'
In terms of the author's position expounded in this paper, human language is (1) a species-specific characteristic of human beings, one that is a common property of all humans; (2) a certain genetic potential, i. e. the 'linguistic endowment' of each concrete individual; (3) a concretized property of the given individual that results form the development (via socialization) of his/her inherited (natural) language potential; and (4) a property that is characteristic of a given group or community of people. It appears that (quite apart from its size and quality) the language of each human community can be interpreted in two different manners: (1) as a logical section, i. e. the shared (invariant) part of all individual languages involved, or (2) as a logical union, i. e. the total of the languages of all living members of the community. Given that interpretation (1) entails a certain operation of abstraction (or generalization), this is the only coherent way in which language as an abstract entity can be construed, on the level of a theoretical construct created by the linguist.