Excuse any double posting. This seemed to have been rejected the first time.
Noam's warriors everywhere?
Dear Diana, Mike, Stefan, et al
The topic became clear to me on reading Diana's contribution. If her ... of
Sampson's thesis (assuming the two books mentioned = 1 thesis). One initial
query, though, is the extent to which Pinker (in TLI) follows the Chomskian
line.
As for the core debate, I've always thought it was about what Popper would
call 'empiricism' versus the very antithesis of that ie the Chomskian
psycholinguistic paradigm.
Culling the clearest statements from those writers who espouse the Chomskian
position one gets the following:
1. The corpus of language babies=>toddlers are
exposed to is insufficient account for their early
mastery of language (and/and therefore its grammar).
2. Nevertheless, at an early age (circa 3- 5) children are
able to master their native language.
3. Therefore, we are born with what is variously called
'Universal Grammar', a 'Language Acquisition Device',
a 'language instinct', etc 'hot wired' into our brains.
And, although many Chomskians protest that this paradigm is open to
empirical refutation, they typically reject or ignore all refutations.
And the paradigm is eminently refutable. In my paper "Chomskian linguistics:
God's truth or hocus pocus", Ethnographic Studies, 4, 1999 (available from
myself at the above e-address) I point out the following:
a. The hypothesis that the 'corpus babies=>toddlers are
exposed to is insufficient is not in any sense an empirical
statement. [In fact it is as much dogma as hypothesis.]
b. A child's 'mastery' of its native language including parts of
the grammar is often deficient until it is 5 or 6.
c. The hypothesised UG, or whatever, can be replaced by an
hypothesised facility (found in at least all mammals) that may
be called the active pattern recognition facility or
somesuch. This would enable us to account for more than
just linguistic ability.
As for 'behaviourism', well Chomsky won more than his spurs by attacking
Skinner's extremely primitive version of that psychological perspective. And
Chomskians have been attacking Skinnerian behaviourism and, of course, a
catchall they call 'positivism' which seems, as far as they are concerned,
includes 'behaviourism'. In fact, thosein "machine learning circles",
mentioned by Rob, are obviously canny types. All the evidence suggests that
languages have to be learned. It's just that none of us learn like dim
Pavlovian dogs.
But, as I flunked my phonology course as a fresher, perhaps someone explain
what the hell all this has to do with that subdiscipline in NORMAL
language.
It has been a nice series of postings. Some real core issues. So thanks.
David
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