Noam Chomsky is awesome.

[Nick_Jinn]

Lately I have been wanting to do more research into his theories on linguistics. That isnt really how I was introduced to his writting but what I do know of his linguistic theories is pretty profound. Is anyone else here a fan of his?

[V for Vincent]

I, for one, abhor generative grammar. He got the ball rolling towards better models, I'll give him that, but his theories have always felt strongly reductionist to me.

[Nick_Jinn]

Like I said, its not his linguistics that got me interested in his work. Its just an area I would like to explore.


How do you feel about his belief that language is innate? I wonder why he feels this tendency is unique to humans.



Some people believe that if you dont have the words for something then you cant think it. I strongly disagree with that perspective, especially if you accept that language is innate. You dont need words to think thoughts if language is innate.

[matthew.ball]

I, for one, abhor generative grammar.
I'm not really a linguist, and my knowledge of language in general is pretty limited.

But coming from the perspective of someone with deep interest in the philosophy of logic/mathematics and perhaps a bit of computer science (in this context I'm mostly interested in Russell's theory of descriptions for instance). What's wrong with generative grammars?

They provide an incredibly well-founded basis for programming languages, and give a sound framework for describing (and analysing) some of the more interesting problems in computer science.. I love them personally.

[Nick_Jinn]

I really need to learn a computer language. I think Python is next on the list.