The generative grammar game: Philosophy Forums

The generative grammar game

Analytic
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Posted 06/18/04 - 07:04 AM:	#1
This may be of interest only to those here who have studied linguistics, but anyway here it is: http://language.home.sprynet.com/chomdex/rea44.htm#t. As a theoretical linguist I had to study generative grammar to some depth, and its internal inconsistencies always bothered me a lot. The most irritating point, for me at least, is the tension between the explicitly expressed request for applying strict methods and its actual realization in generative grammar. There are other grammatical theories, like Categorial Grammar, that put the principle in actual use without paying too much unnecessary lip service to it. And there's the notorious problem of Universal Grammar, too, and also Chomskians' total ignorance of psycholinguistic facts, and the list can be made longer...

Ethereal
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Posted 06/18/04 - 07:38 AM:	#2
You might find this interesting too:A Review of Chomsky's Criticism of Kripke's Wittgenstein For some reason, a great number of words are written in capitals, probably to emphasise some point. It can be very irritating to the eye.

Analytic
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Posted 06/19/04 - 12:00 AM:	#3
Ethereal wrote: You might find this interesting too:A Review of Chomsky's Criticism of Kripke's Wittgenstein For some reason, a great number of words are written in capitals, probably to emphasise some point. It can be very irritating to the eye. I think the author of the page wrote the original text on a typewriter because the only means of emphasis he applies apart from capitalization is underlining that used to be turned into italics by printers. Well, the competence-performace dichotomy is a nice example of the philosophical confusion about language use that Chomsky is responsible for. Postulating as basic an only introspectively accessible competence endangers the hope of a scientific enterprise because it's fundamentally subjective. As he remarks somewhere it is possible that I intentionally go against my linguistic intuitions in order to conform with some outside convention concerning language use in my community. But then what's the point in trying to draw on such a mysterious entity? What's the criterion of justification of the particular claims made about it? Actually, there's no criterion of correctness applicable to competence-related facts. Chomsky is not even a Platonist, so he can't say that competence "mirrors" some Platonic realm which is there, although not in physical space. This would be an unpopular position (nowadays at least) but it would at least be a way out of some sort.

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