> there MUST be universal laws that govern it I disagree. There's a strong desire from a western scientific mindset that everything be possible to reduce and t

> there MUST be universal laws that govern it I disagree. There's a strong desire from a western scientific mindset that everything be possible to reduce and turned into laws and models, but that doesn't mean everything works like that. It's putting the cart before the horse. > How do you imagine language could develop (both evolutionarily and within each child that learns it)if there were no predetermined laws that restricted the set of possible word combinations? As Chomsky would say, if you think about it for a while, you will see that the alternative actually makes no sense. This is just armchair philosophizing, reminds me a lot of "praxeology". And even if it was true, which I don't believe at all, that doesn't mean that he or anyone else can successfully identify and articulate them. > But he has shown conclusively that there must be some universal structure that underpins all natural human languages. I don't see that at all and while I happily admit I'm not a linguist I'm sure there are countless actual linguists who would agree Chomsky is a bit of an emperor with no clothes.