Noam Chomsky on Universal Grammar and the genetics of language

[TDP788]

ancient aliens should do an episode about this to explain the "miracle" of language acquisition

[niriop]

@TDP788 I have no idea whether you're joking or are truly a madman

[TDP788]

@TDP788 no - im not joking - it's a theoretical show so don't get all sensitive. it would be interesting, and it is possible.

[niriop]

@TDP788 Don't get all sensitive about pseudo-scientific bullshit destroying the credibility of the discourse?

[TDP788]

@niriop I don't think an imaginative theory on TV show destroys the credibility of anything. It's ok to have an open mind even when things can't be scientifically proven. It's fun. Stop crying.

[niriop]

@TDP788 There's a difference between having an "open mind" and having a mind so "open" your brain falls out. I have nothing more to say to you.

[TDP788]

@niriop defensiveness is an aspect of a close mind. so how did our brains dramatically increase in such a short period of time? how did we develop language? evolution can't explain it. please don't say proteins either because we were ingesting proteins for hundreds of thousands of years before. even chomsky himself said something like "a cosmic light beam" or something rearranged our DNA, of course he doesn't literally mean this, but he is just saying it's an anomaly

[niriop]

@TDP788 watch?v=T69TOuqaqXI

As to your actual words, I say: Whoop! Whoop! Wacko! Wacko! Froot loopin' fruitcake! *Rings finger around head and whistles* Whoop! Whoop!

[TDP788]

@niriop wtf are you saying, dork?

[TDP788]

@niriop im not saying I beleive anything, so that video does not apply to me. All I am doing is specualting, so stop defending nothing.

[niriop]

@TDP788 "All I am doing is specualting" That's what all the nutters say.

"TEH JEWS DID 9/11! I'm only asking questions! TEH MOON LANDINGS WERE FAKED! Hey, I'm only asking questions here!"

[TDP788]

@niriop umm, no. The foundation of science requires us to question everything. It is scientific to have an open mind to new ideas, but put them through an evidence filter. The ancient aliens hypothesis HAS evidence, but it cannot be proven. It is just an interesting theory. In what way does this realization make me a quack? I haven't accepted or said I believe it...don't blindly label someone because you are oversensitive and close-minded

[niriop]

@TDP788 "The ancient aliens hypothesis HAS evidence" Ahahahahaahahahahaha! What a delusional nut!

[niriop]

@TDP788 "The ancient aliens hypothesis HAS evidence" Ahahahahaahahahahaha! What a delusional nut!

[TDP788]

@niriop yeah, it does - so what? I'm not implying that it's true. I'm just being objective. Evidence does not equal truth. It's just a THEORY you fucking cunt. Shut up!

[lgarvaux]

First off I am not a linguist nor am I qualified on any level to comment other than as a layman observer. What strikes me about this entire half century+ old endeavor termed UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR is somewhat akin to present day 'ART CIRCLES who engage in a language of their own contrivance only understood by them and their pretenders: esp.those of a certain socio-economic class and known colloquially and derisively as simply "ART SPEAK".

Similarly I would term UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR to be "SPEAK SPEAK"

[niriop]

@lgarvaux I don't get your point

[BethhCorserr12]

@lgarvaux By 'universal grammar' he is refering to how all languages have similar grammatical structures. The word order they speak in may differ, though every language has word classes (nouns, verbs, etc.), past, future and present tenses, sentence types and sentence structures that are familiar to every language. Even in these 'art circles' you speak of, there would be features like nouns, tense and sentence types in their speech. This is what he means by 'Universal Grammar' :) x

[ThysaniaAg]

Where and when is he lecturing here?

[ThysaniaAg]

@ThysaniaAg Oh nvm. I found it. "This event took place on April 22, 2008 at the Google Cambridge office, as a part of the Authors@Google series."

[DerEchteSenf]

This is the first time I see him outright dismiss mysticism about higher mental faculties in an interview. O__O

[niriop]

@DerEchteSenf Same about him on actual generation of consciousness :( New Mysterianism is such a dead end.

[DerEchteSenf]

@niriop Hmmm consciousness is a cloudy term so whenever someone talks about it, I would ask anyway:: What does he _actually_ talk about?

So hearing what xy thinks about con. only irritates me anyway.

[niriop]

@niriop *Shame

[minzhide]

So... it doesn't matter that in the past 30ky modern humans have interbred with two other human species, Home neanderthalensis and the Denisovans, whose last common ancestor with modern humans was about 800kya? The fact that modern populations with DNA from these other human species who couldn't possibly have had UG if it evolved only 100-50kya don't exhibit deficits in their language abilities isn't suggestive that Chomsky's dates and assumptions are probably wrong?

[niriop]

@minzhide I've always put my money on language evolving amongst Homo Erectus around 1 million years ago. And we do know that Neanderthals were capable of speech through the study of their gullets, and they had a complex culture similar to early humans, which may indicate use of language.

[minzhide]

@niriop I think we need to be considering language appearing at least that far back, and/or abolishing UG. We also need to accept that we're never going to find clear evidence of language in archaeological terms. If you look at traditional San or Mbuti cultures they don't really produce stone tools, but they speak fantastically, and really all of the assumptions that the 'Great Leap Forward' is based on comes from stone tools, a few skeletons here and there, but almost exclusively stone tools.

[minzhide]

@niriop Chomsky's ideas on the subject work for early 20th century data, but they quite simply no longer do. We know far too much to be falling back on the poorly educated guesses that guided early generative linguistics.

[guitarunner]

apparently I believe in magic.....since those grand assumptions upon far reaching givens is the alternative.

[niriop]

@guitarunner The basic underlying principles of grammar are the same for all languages when compared; Wernicke's and Broca's areas have been specifically tied to different parts of grammar control; most clinical evidence points towards some kind of innate language acquisition and control function. I mean, he doesn't need to be right about everything, but come on, facts are on his side.

Syntactic Structures is an easy book to acquire and read, as is Pinker's The Language Instinct.

[niriop]

@johngerbeb Explain

[minzhide]

@niriop Wenicke's area is actually more specifically tied to the general ability to focus. Further, the language deficits that people with Wernicke's aphasia exhibit fit this general trend. But this aspect is generally ignored due to the fact that it was first and most prominently associated with languages deficits period. Beyond this, the coarse structure of specific grammars is not constrained by anything beyond logic, only the fine structure is. None of the facts are on Chomsky's side.

[minzhide]

@niriop If you're so sure that you know what you're talking about then why don't you explain to me and everyone else predication in Nuxálk (hint: look at the responses to wh-questions), recursion in Nunggubuyu, 'verbal' inflection in Wolof, embedded clauses in Mandarin, parts of speech in Jingulu and syllable structure in Sakao?

[niriop]

@minzhide Because I'm not qualified; why don't you do it?

[minzhide]

@niriop Nuxálk predication breaks all extant formal syntax models. Nunggubuyu lacks recursion. Wolof puts 'verbal' inflection on nouns. Mandarin is a serial verb language, so it doesn't embed clauses. Jingulu derives all content bearing parts of speech with bound morphology, that is there are no lexical nouns, verbs, adjectives or anything else in Jingulu. Sakao probably lacks syllables completely, only requiring a vowel to appear in a phonological word, but permitting any number of consonants.

[minzhide]

@minzhide The specific reason that Nuxálk breaks modern theories of formal syntax is actually b/c of a move made by Chomsky himself in the original outline of X-bar which AFAICT everyone since has copied unquestioningly. It was the decision to remove exocentric structures from syntax, since it was thought to never occur. It actually occurs frequently, and the modern method of explaining it away is by positing a null phrase head and calling the process 'elision'... which it actually isn't.

[minzhide]

@minzhide The reason Nuxálk is important is that the 'elision' excuse is blatantly illogical, since the source of the structure of wh-question responses comes exclusively from the structure of the wh-question posed. Further, this question is posed by another speaker. Additionally, these structurally underspecified (internally) responses are actually morphologically more complex than normal sentences, so 'elision' clearly isn't a good solution.

[niriop]

@minzhide Having a quick look over the literature, those all seem contested claims.

For instance, there is still a debate over the existence of verbs (and if any, how many catergories of) in Jingulu, as can be seen in the paper "Linguistic Universals and the Category P" (which goes into various foundational UG issues).

[minzhide]

@niriop I Jingulu has verbs, it has only three and they lack specific content. The way that I phrased it is not contested.

[niriop]

@minzhide "there are no lexical nouns, verbs, adjectives or anything else in Jingulu" Sounds like you've changed your tune.

"Jingulu has three lexical parts of speech: verb, nominal, and adverb." Quoted from "Verbs as Spatial Deixis Markers in Jingulu". Pensalfini, R.

[minzhide]

@minzhide It's also clear from the data, if you ever bother trying to read a sample of Jingulu.

[niriop]

@minzhide "Lexical categories: verbs, nouns, and adjectives". Baker, Mark C. p80

Seems to make a good case.

[minzhide]

@niriop All you're doing is proving my point. That all this 'science' is really just elitist social networking. You're too tied up in who's who to just look at the data yourself. It's freely available.

[niriop]

@minzhide "All you're doing is proving my point" You said "there are no lexical nouns, verbs, adjectives or anything else in Jingulu". Baker is clearly saying otherwise.

"look at the data yourself" I AM NOT A FUCKING LINGUIST.

"elitist social networking" Ah, you're one of those "fringe" fools who feels persecuted don't you?

Look, I'm not a linguist, I'm a philosopher (in training); I can't argue directly, I can only interpret the works of linguists and argue from that point.

[niriop]

If you're so fucking connected, go to the man and his colleagues themselves, not his admirers. Write a book with your vast knowledge, shake up the academic world.

How about a paper you've written on the subject? Can you at least give me that?

[niriop]

@minzhide "If you're so sure that you know what you're talking about" Never indicated this at all. You seem aggressive, calm down.

Well, I'm not a linguist, so I can't comment. However, I shall do a bit of research.

[minzhide]

@niriop If you're not a linguist then stop promoting hacks like Chomsky.

[niriop]

@minzhide "hacks like Chomsky" Yes the most prominent and influential linguist since de Saussure is a hack. He might be wrong in your view, but to call him a hack is just petty.

[minzhide]

@niriop Not really. I know him personally.

[niriop]

@minzhide At first, I was going to tell of the foul stench of bullshit emanating from my PC. However, I can give you the opportunity to give me some proof. PM me your name, CV and insitution, and any papers, reports, projects, conferences etc that can link you to Chomsky personally. Trust me, revealing your private details to anyone is not in my interest; I've built this channel up, I don't want to destroy it.

[minzhide]

@niriop The data's not saying what you want so you have to make a social thing, eh?

[niriop]

@minzhide Listen fucker, fuck everything else, you've just claimed to personally know Noam Chomsky. Firstly, this seems highly improbable. Secondly, why would his detractor be as pathetic to argue on YouTube videos rather than speak to him himself? That's bizarre, that sounds like a bad comedy sketch.

[minzhide]

@niriop Another interesting thing you might want to research. Rapa Nui natively lacks conjunction morphology. So elementary logical operations are less than trivial to execute. And Aymara uses trivalent, rather than bivalent logic, which effects some grammatical and many logical relations.

[Keinlicht]

@Kricardose Sock puppets, why?

[rabbifilms]

CHOMSKY! CHOMSKY! CHOMSKY!

[totallymassive]

10:45 this video became more interesting. 

[bluetoebeing]

infinite regresssssssssssssssssssssssss­sssss...

[9zreed]

He can get up there and declare all that off the top of his head, but he doesn't bother to comb his hair? I applaud you Mr. Chomsky.

[15sayantani]

al hail chomsky!!the man a living legend!

[niriop]

@15sayantani A genius he sure is

[SecularNumanist]

excellent talk. ill check the rest out

[boobootoob]

@SecularNumanist This full exchange is available by searching for "google talks" I think or google books. The whole thing is great.