Chomsky under fire

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I'm not a big fan of Evertte - i think he makes fundimental mistakes when looking at so called "ancient" languages and so-called "primative" people. That aside, I had heard that Chomsky (well, his universal grammar) is right at teh cusp of "ummm not so fast". That's fine with me, if only cause it presupposes things that I find odd now that i'm more fully versed in ASL and signed languages.

But on the other hand, what "universal grammar" is, can be so damn vague "we have a sense of language" type vague, that it loses some meaning to me. When UV becomes "humans are driven to interpret their world via language" I don't think you can challenge it. But the new stuff you showed me about a month ago, that was really dealing with "language first? or language as a bi product" was far more compelling and might better explain what language is. and what, if anything a UV would be.

In other words, get over my bias against evertte and read the "juicy" stuff, as this author says.

Pink mowse.pngGodot What do cats dream about?16:49, 28 March 2012

I never heard of Everett until now. Chomsky does have a bad habit of backpedaling to a vaguer form of UG whenever it's challenged, though. Believe it or not, I would put my money on Pinker's idea of a "language instinct," in some general form. I don't have the linguistic chops to evaluate Chomsky or Pinker's specific claims about language, but I think they got some of the basic ideas right from the psychological end of things. The evidence for poverty of the stimulus is compelling, along with the fact that Broca's area homologues have been observed in other primates. ([1], [2])

Nebuchadnezzar (talk)17:10, 28 March 2012

I think that was teh article you showed me. about language instinct, which i actually liked. It was similar, but different to/from universal Grammar. It wasn't by pinker, but someone discussing the two theories and brinking in a third.

Pink mowse.pngGodot What do cats dream about?17:23, 28 March 2012

You mean this one? Personally, I like to watch the linguistic types duke it out as a sort of spectator sport. My background is in memory and perception, where animal models are plentiful and definitions are much less fuzzy. Does it have eyes? Good enough! (While I'm linkspamming John Hawks, he has a great lecture on eyes and vision.)

Nebuchadnezzar (talk)01:21, 29 March 2012

I loved that article, yeah. I need to read teh book, but as it's harder to find online, i'll actually have to go out to a library. But it really seems worth it.

Pink mowse.pngGodot What do cats dream about?15:49, 29 March 2012

I'm reading Tomasello's book currently. I'm not convinced that some form of theory of mind can be ruled out in other primates, though.

Nebuchadnezzar (talk)19:40, 29 March 2012