I guess I was hinting at a chain of influence, which is all related for me to the automata school of behavioral psychology. In some ways I am thinking first of Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt, who put forth the idea that our “inner experience” could be represented mathematically and experimented upon in isolation, or rather separately from any physiological experimentation.

Then there is Watson who I believe coined the term behaviorism, in part to contrast it with and simultaneously build upon Wundt’s introspectionism.

Skinner really just worked this vein further, taking it beyond mere stimulus/response conditioning into ideas like schedules of reinforcement, and high-level learning such as language. He’s implying that the process of knowing language is ultimately conditioning, which you’re hinting at in your comment. I haven’t read Verbal Behavior yet but I will be checking it out from the library on your recommendation.

Am I still missing something? Please do let me know, I am curious how I misrepresented either of them. I could just be forgetting my studies…

Skinner’s book Verbal Behavior is proving to be quite insightful into language studies these days. You might want to look into it.