Re: CHAT: Chomsky (Was Re: ALERT: Chomsky Giving a Talk on Language Creation?)

Ray wrote:

<<BTW, I strongly suspect that Chomsky's "Three factors in language design:
Background and prospects" has little or nothing to do with conlanging, but
with his 'deep structure'
ideas - but I may be entirely wrong.>>

No, you're probably right.   The first thing I heard (not read) was what a
fellow graduate student said here, which was, "Chomsky's giving a keynote on
language creation".   That's what caused my conlangy sense to tingle.
Afterwards, when I read what his actual title was, etc., I began to doubt it, and,
indeed, do doubt it very much now.

On another topic, I want to apologize for bringing into the Chomsky
discussion my political remarks.   To conclude, I'll say this: There is no doubt that
the impression I got (or formulated) was that if he was a politico of some
kind, he'd be a right wing politico, and I got this impression based on what I
learned of his linguistic theories.   Whether or not this formulation was correct
or not, and to what degree, is a different discussion, as is the discussion
of what the implications of such a formulation are, whether it varies based on
the reader (i.e., whether the reader has more or less knowledge of his
linguistic work, and how they intrepret it, plus where the reader is coming from,
what opinions s/he's already formulated about many things, etc.).   Everything
relating to why I formed my opinion or how valid it is is not a conlang topic,
and I think it should be discussed elsewhere (if at all).   It was just
something that came up, and I didn't mean to make it an actual point of discussion.

-David