If a serious research program successfully unifies allegedly disparate linguistic phenomena under one ontological category, the pluralist bears the burden of showing why parsimony should be sacrificed.

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Ontological category(as used in metaphysics): A fundamental type or kind of thing that exists; like how 'physical objects,' 'numbers,' or 'ideas' might be different categories of what exists.
Research program(as used in philosophy of science): A long-term scientific or philosophical project that uses a core set of ideas and methods to solve problems, kind of like a strategy that a scientist commits to over many years.
Unifies(as used in this metaphysical argument): Brings together or connects multiple separate things into a single coherent group or system.
disparate(describing the linguistic phenomena being explained): Fundamentally different or seemingly unrelated to each other.
linguistic phenomena(as used in philosophy of language): Observable patterns, behaviors, or features of language—basically, things about how language works that we can notice and study.
parsimony(Used by both Tomasello & Call and Povinelli & Vonk to justify mutually incompatible conclusions): A criterion of explanatory simplicity favoring hypotheses that posit fewer entities, capacities, or rules to account for the same data.
pluralist(as opposed to someone who thinks there's one unified explanation): Someone who believes that multiple different things, explanations, or types exist rather than just one single answer.

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