Hallo!
On Tue, 16 May 2006 15:57:24 -0400, Eldin Raigmore wrote:
> On Mon, 15 May 2006 21:25:41 +0200, Jörg Rhiemeier <joerg_rhiemeier@...>
> wrote:
>
> [...]
> >... it has indeed been claimed that many contemporary theories of language
> >are in fact just theories of English,
>
> [er]
> Yes, it has.
>
> While it appears true that some published "Universal Grammar" works have
> been published without adequate attention to "exotic" languages, it is
> nevertheless true that some, for instance the founding works of Role-and-
> Reference Grammar, were _inspired_ by these "exotic" languages in the first
> place.
Yes. I am aware of the fact that several new theories have been developed
because older theories didn't handle particular languages well.
> It isn't fair to throw out an entire theory because some papers in that
> theory were published prematurely.
True.
> It is particularly unfair to throw out an entire _class_ of theories
> because you have decided to (in some cases unfairly) throw out some of them.
You are of course right.
I didn't really mean to "throw out" an entire class of theories, I'm sorry.
But I plainly have little use for them.
> [JR]
> >and I seem to remmeber reading somewhere that Chomsky doesn't speak any
> >foreign language, though I don't know whether that's true.
>
> [er]
> No, this is a canard.
OK. I guessed that. I should have said "It is sometimes rumoured that ...",
because I had heard that rumour.
> Chomsky's "Aspects of Syntax" were developed in his private notes studying
> material from Hebrew and French; although he didn't publish until he could
> apply his ideas to English.
I see. Yes, I seem to dimly remember something about Hebrew i this context.
> I get tired of seeing this repeated. Chomsky's ideas have enough real
> weaknesses to not make this a necessary part of the arsenal of his
> detractors.
I concur with you. Nor should his political views and whatever one thinks
about them taint one's judgement of Chomsky's linguistic ideas.
> If you see this notion repeated by anyone who has already been told it is
> untrue, that person is doing the off-net equivalent of "trolling" -- that
> is, they are saying what they say merely to provoke an argument, not
> because they really believe it themselves.
>
> Such remarks should be ignored.
Yes.
> [JR]
> >It is probably true with many of his successors, though.
>
> [er]
> Well, I doubt that.
You have good reasons to do so.
One would indeed expect an academic linguist, if not to actually speak a
foreign language, but at least to have some idea about the diversity found
in languages worldwide. Many university programmes in linguistics indeed
require a course in at least one non-Indo-European language.
> What has been true of many of his successors -- at least, of many of the
> papers they have published -- has been, that they went to publication
> without testing their ideas on more than one or two languages (of which
> one, frequently, was English); that often the "testing" was rather cursory
> on some of the languages (frequently all of them except English); and that
> they relied too much on introspection as a scientific tool.
I see. While there are many premature publications in linguistics,
insufficient account of linguistic diversity is just one potential fault out
of many.
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