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Thanks for this! However, I'm not seeing how this strikes at Chomsky's theory. It does give us some insight into mental machinery, that languages aren't necess

by neilk 16y ago

Thanks for this! However, I'm not seeing how this strikes at Chomsky's theory. It does give us some insight into mental machinery, that languages aren't necessarily parsimonious in reusing the same structures across NPs and VPs. But what's the significance?

williamdix 16y ago
The Ars article way over-states the significance. It should really say something like "Chomsky was wrong, languages are not only head-first or complement-first, and they only appear that way because of cultural inheritance, not universal rules" But that's not very exciting, is it?