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The author seems to make a very valid point. In social sciences, validation by peers and reputation seems to be at least as important as factual correctness. C

The author seems to make a very valid point. In social sciences, validation by peers and reputation seems to be at least as important as factual correctness. Chomsky's 'theories' do sound vague and pompous. It is never nice to see counterexamples to your conjectures, but he should deal with like a grown-up. I do understand that this is very hard when you are praised the way he was and is.

foldr 10y ago
>Chomsky's 'theories' do sound vague and pompous. Have you read any of Chomsky's work on syntax?
- DashRattlesnake 10y ago
  From the OP: > But Chomsky is no Einstein. And linguistics is not physics. Unlike Einstein, for example, Chomsky has been forced to retract at one time or another just about every major proposal he has made up to his current research, which he calls ‘Minimalism’. Concepts that helped make him famous, such as ‘deep structure’ and ‘surface structure’, were thrown out years ago. And unlike physics, there is no significant mathematics or clear way to disprove Chomsky’s broader claims – part of the reason for the current controversy. > Over time, universal grammar has been reduced from a rich set of supposedly innate principles to whatever it is about human biology that makes human language possible (by which definition, as I have said numerous times, the physical brain itself is all there is to ‘universal grammar’). And once he got down to the narrow faculty of language, supposedly the one thing that makes human language possible and unavailable to other creatures, Chomsky claimed it was nothing more nor less than recursion – the ability to put one thing inside another of the same type. Then Pirahã came along. Ignoring Everett's own work and the Pirahã, is this in fact true?
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  - foldr 10y ago
    No, not really. It's true that Chomsky has modified his ideas in response to new evidence/arguments. Exactly the same thing happens in physics and any other scientific discipline. The claim that FLN is nothing more than recursion is from one rather speculative paper Chomsky co-authored in 2002. If you look at his actual theoretical proposals, or more importantly, those of everyone else working in generative syntax, there's lots more to it than just "recursion".
    - mannykannot 10y ago
      The perception that UG is just about recursion does not come only from Chomsky's critics. This article, which is a criticism of Everett by a linguist, makes a big deal of recursion and seems to be implying that UG takes a form that is practically un-falsifiable (it may just be a poor defense of the concept.) https://medium.com/@dan.milway/dont-believe-the-rumours-universal-grammar-is-alive-and-well-58c1fbc5608b#.9c1iiaudx https://medium.com/@dan.milway/dont-believe-the-rumours-univ...
      - foldr 10y ago
        That's a blog post by a PhD student. I'm talking about ~50 years of literature with concrete theoretical proposals that involve much more than just the general concept of recursion. Check one of Chomsky's recent syntax papers and see if you find that recursion is the only component of the theory. Also, the blog post does not say that UG is just about recursion. It just says that it's a central concept within generative linguistics, which is true.

foldr 10y ago

>Chomsky's 'theories' do sound vague and pompous. Have you read any of Chomsky's work on syntax?

DashRattlesnake 10y ago
From the OP: > But Chomsky is no Einstein. And linguistics is not physics. Unlike Einstein, for example, Chomsky has been forced to retract at one time or another just about every major proposal he has made up to his current research, which he calls ‘Minimalism’. Concepts that helped make him famous, such as ‘deep structure’ and ‘surface structure’, were thrown out years ago. And unlike physics, there is no significant mathematics or clear way to disprove Chomsky’s broader claims – part of the reason for the current controversy. > Over time, universal grammar has been reduced from a rich set of supposedly innate principles to whatever it is about human biology that makes human language possible (by which definition, as I have said numerous times, the physical brain itself is all there is to ‘universal grammar’). And once he got down to the narrow faculty of language, supposedly the one thing that makes human language possible and unavailable to other creatures, Chomsky claimed it was nothing more nor less than recursion – the ability to put one thing inside another of the same type. Then Pirahã came along. Ignoring Everett's own work and the Pirahã, is this in fact true?
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- foldr 10y ago
  No, not really. It's true that Chomsky has modified his ideas in response to new evidence/arguments. Exactly the same thing happens in physics and any other scientific discipline. The claim that FLN is nothing more than recursion is from one rather speculative paper Chomsky co-authored in 2002. If you look at his actual theoretical proposals, or more importantly, those of everyone else working in generative syntax, there's lots more to it than just "recursion".
  - mannykannot 10y ago
    The perception that UG is just about recursion does not come only from Chomsky's critics. This article, which is a criticism of Everett by a linguist, makes a big deal of recursion and seems to be implying that UG takes a form that is practically un-falsifiable (it may just be a poor defense of the concept.) https://medium.com/@dan.milway/dont-believe-the-rumours-universal-grammar-is-alive-and-well-58c1fbc5608b#.9c1iiaudx https://medium.com/@dan.milway/dont-believe-the-rumours-univ...
    - foldr 10y ago
      That's a blog post by a PhD student. I'm talking about ~50 years of literature with concrete theoretical proposals that involve much more than just the general concept of recursion. Check one of Chomsky's recent syntax papers and see if you find that recursion is the only component of the theory. Also, the blog post does not say that UG is just about recursion. It just says that it's a central concept within generative linguistics, which is true.