3 ms·

I feel like the Piraha stuff comes up every so often, and I feel obligated each time to link to the famous Nevins and Pesetsky rebuttal: https://dspace.mit.edu/

I feel like the Piraha stuff comes up every so often, and I feel obligated each time to link to the famous Nevins and Pesetsky rebuttal: https://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/94631/Nevins-2009-PIRAHA%20EXCEPTIONALIT.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y https://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/94631/Nevins-... Beyond the disagreement about what recursion is (as used to define the faculty of language narrow (FLN), from the Chomsky, Hauser, Fitch paper mentioned in the interview), there are significant problems with Everett's argument in general which are covered quite well in the rebuttal.

derriz 6y ago
Here's Evert's response to the rebuttal: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/215992069_Cultural_constraints_on_grammar_in_Piraha_A_reply_to_Nevins_Pesetsky_and_Rodrigues_2007 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/215992069_Cultural_...
- bloak 6y ago
  It doesn't inspire confidence that the German examples in that response are all wrong. But I can recommend Everett's book "Don't sleep, there are snakes", which is only partly about language.
  - derriz 6y ago
    I'm curious (having some basic German) what's wrong with the German examples? Isn't most of the German taken from the article he is responding to? edit - actually I think I see it - he's not inflecting the articles correctly after "von"?
    - Zickzack 6y ago
      The claim is that "the English possessive is potentially recursive, while the Saxon genitive [its counterpart in German] is not". I think they are confusing some issues. And by the way, I thought Saxon genitive was a term from English grammar. Anyhow, in German, you can use the Saxon genitive in preposition, if the word in Genitive can be used like a personal name: "ich sehe Karls Auto". And it is true that you cannot recurse on that: "ich sehe Karls Bruders Auto" is not German, except maybe in German poems two hundred years ago, when the language was raped. Even "ich sehe meines Vaters Auto" will sound outside of the norm. However, you can recurse in postposition: "ich sehe das Auto meines Vaters", "ich sehe das Auto des Bruders meines Vaters". You do not have to say "ich sehe das Auto vom Bruder von meinem Vater". Several edits, sorry.
      - teraku 6y ago
        Would argue that "ich sehe meines Vaters Auto" is valid, but only for lyrics and/or old German.
- probably_wrong 6y ago
  In regards to this discussion, there is this one tweet summarizing the main back and forth: https://twitter.com/phonologist/status/982023915319906304 https://twitter.com/phonologist/status/982023915319906304

derriz 6y ago

Here's Evert's response to the rebuttal: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/215992069_Cultural_constraints_on_grammar_in_Piraha_A_reply_to_Nevins_Pesetsky_and_Rodrigues_2007 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/215992069_Cultural_...

bloak 6y ago
It doesn't inspire confidence that the German examples in that response are all wrong. But I can recommend Everett's book "Don't sleep, there are snakes", which is only partly about language.
- derriz 6y ago
  I'm curious (having some basic German) what's wrong with the German examples? Isn't most of the German taken from the article he is responding to? edit - actually I think I see it - he's not inflecting the articles correctly after "von"?
  - Zickzack 6y ago
    The claim is that "the English possessive is potentially recursive, while the Saxon genitive [its counterpart in German] is not". I think they are confusing some issues. And by the way, I thought Saxon genitive was a term from English grammar. Anyhow, in German, you can use the Saxon genitive in preposition, if the word in Genitive can be used like a personal name: "ich sehe Karls Auto". And it is true that you cannot recurse on that: "ich sehe Karls Bruders Auto" is not German, except maybe in German poems two hundred years ago, when the language was raped. Even "ich sehe meines Vaters Auto" will sound outside of the norm. However, you can recurse in postposition: "ich sehe das Auto meines Vaters", "ich sehe das Auto des Bruders meines Vaters". You do not have to say "ich sehe das Auto vom Bruder von meinem Vater". Several edits, sorry.
    - teraku 6y ago
      Would argue that "ich sehe meines Vaters Auto" is valid, but only for lyrics and/or old German.
probably_wrong 6y ago
In regards to this discussion, there is this one tweet summarizing the main back and forth: https://twitter.com/phonologist/status/982023915319906304 https://twitter.com/phonologist/status/982023915319906304