UG is the name for the theory of the genetic component of the language faculty. — Xtrix
This is just another mischaracterization, in my view. — Xtrix
I think it is important that the oddness of the UG hypothesis about language acquisition be emphasized; it has basically no parallels in hypotheses about how children acquire competence in other cognitive domains. For example, such skills as music and mathematics are, like language, unique to humans and universal among human groups, with some variations. But no one has to date proposed anything like Universal Music or Universal Mathematics, and no one has as yet proposed any parameters of these abilities to explain cross-cultural diversity (e.g., +/- variables, which some cultures use, as in algebra, and some do not — or certain tonal patterns in music). It is not that psychologists think that these skills have no important biological bases — they assuredly do — it is just that proposing an innate UM does not seem to be a testable hypothesis, it has no interesting empirical consequences beyond those generated by positing biological bases in general, and so overall it does not help us in any way to get closer to the phylogenetic and ontogenetic origins of these interesting cognitive skills
UG is the name for the theory of the genetic component of the language faculty.
— Xtrix
There is no, and cannot in principle be, a ‘genetic component of the language faculty’. That's the point. — StreetlightX
children are not born with a universal, dedicated tool for learning grammar. — StreetlightX
It’s the entire research project, which is trash. — StreetlightX
“A rational Martian scientist would probably find the variation rather superficial, concluding that there is one human language with minor variants”. This ‘one human language’, is of course, Chomsky’s noumenal language — StreetlightX
I’m honestly not that interested in the brain science. I am interested in what philosophical hay we expect to make of all this. Thoughts? Why should current findings in neurolinguistics matter to us? — Srap Tasmaner
But no one has to date proposed anything like Universal Music or Universal Mathematics
Isn't mathematics universal already? — Wayfarer
The observation about social context is actually uncontroversial with regard to communication — you can’t study communication without social context, that’s virtual tautology. So, of course, the study of communication takes it into account. But it’s also uncontroversial that the study of the mechanisms that we put to use in action, whatever it is, that study typically ignores social context and quite rightly so. For example, for those of you who know this work, the classic work on neurophysiology of vision, say, Hubel and Wiesel’s work, for which they got the Nobel Prize.
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Or in fact virtually all of the fundamental work that aims to determine the properties of the modules of cognition at whatever level it’s conducted whether it’s neurophysiological, behavioural, perceptual, whatever, – it ignores social context totally, just following the normal methods of the sciences. However, we’re instructed that the study of mechanisms used, say, in the examples I mentioned, these ECP examples, or the study of, for example, vowel harmony in Turkish, or of the relative scope of operators, or, in fact, everything else about language has to depart from the scientific norm. That’s a principle. It cannot follow the methods of the sciences.
Well, this kind of critique, which is quite widespread, is, in fact, accompanied by a novel concept of science that has emerged in the computational cognitive sciences and related areas of linguistics. With this new notion of science, which is all over the literature, an account of some phenomena is taken to be successful to the extent that it approximates unanalysed data.
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The major cognitive science journals, and general journals like Science, regularly publish articles triumphantly listing dramatic failures which are called successes because they accord with this new concept, which is unique in the history of the sciences and very radically restricted, in fact, almost specifically to language. So, nobody would suggest it for physics or bee communication or almost anything else, because it’s so obviously absurd that people would just laugh. In fact, it’s not even suggested for systems as close to a language as arithmetical capacity. So, you don’t study arithmetical capacity by constructing models based on a statistical analysis of masses of observations of what happens when, say, people try to multiply numbers in their heads without external memory. At least, I hope nobody does that.
Enfield, in the same article, he also puts forth a far-reaching thesis which is quite standard in the cognitive sciences and a very clear expression of the non-existence hypothesis, I’ll quote him. He says: “Language is entirely grounded in a constellation of cognitive capacities that each, taken separately, has other functions as well.” Notice, that’s kind of an updating of the nineteen-fifties position that I quoted. Well, that means language exists only in the sense that there exists such a thing as today’s weather, which is also a constellation of many factors that operate independently.
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There’s another influential version of the idea that language doesn’t exist. It’s sort of highly dominant in language acquisition studies and the leading figure is Michael Tomasello. So, in a recent handbook of child development he explains that there aren’t any linguistic rules and there’s nothing to say about descriptive regularities, say, like those ECP examples. Rather, there’s nothing at all except a structured inventory of meaningful linguistic constructions, all of them meaningful linguistic symbols that are used in communication. That’s his topic, there being no such thing as language. The inventory is structured only in the sense that its elements — words, idioms, sentences like the one I’m now speaking — they’re all acquired by processes of pattern finding, schematization and abstraction that are common to all primates. A few other processes, all left quite obscure. So, in other words, these ECP examples that I mentioned, according to this story, are learned just the way a child learns ‘horse’, or an idiom like ‘how do you do’ or, say, ‘kick the bucket’ meaning ‘die’, and so on, or this sentence, they’re all learned exactly the same way. And the child somehow learns that the ECP violation is not usable for communication, even though the thought is fine, although the other expression somehow is. And presumably, the expressions could have virtually any other properties in the next language you look at. In fact, the inventory, as in the 1950’s versions is essentially an arbitrary collection of unanalysed linguistic symbols and it’s also finite, just like Quine’s pattern, apart from some hand-waving. In fact, I can think of no rational interpretation for any of this, but it’s overwhelmingly dominant in the fields, you might think about it.
Enfield also presents a closely related thesis, that’s also very widely held, I’ll quote it: “There are well-developed gradualist evolutionary arguments to support the conclusion that there’s no such thing as language, except as an arbitrary complex of independent cognitive processes.” Again, no relevant sources cited, and none exist.
Try this argument with the visual system or the nervous system. — Xtrix
A Martian would indeed look down and conclude the same thing about skin -- all humans have it, despite different colors. — Xtrix
Tomasello wants to make a name for himself by going after Chomsky, but is as convincing as Everett -- who's a complete fraud. — Xtrix
Tomasello wants to make a name for himself by going after Chomsky, but is as convincing as Everett -- who's a complete fraud. — Xtrix
The reality is that there has been much written about both mathematics and music -- including ideas about how they may be piggybacking off of language. — Xtrix
Because it's the best we can do to study thought. Language isn't the same as thought, of course, but it's related. — Xtrix
Try this argument with the visual system or the nervous system.
— Xtrix
Except langauge is not a biological capacity. — StreetlightX
It is not a biological capacity like writing letters is not a biological capacity. — StreetlightX
It's cute how you went from "that's a mischaracterization" to white knighting from your priest once it was pointed out that he said the very thing you said he did not. — StreetlightX
Lmao, Tomasello is one of the most prolific and respected cognitive scientists out there. — StreetlightX
I don’t have a pony in this race, but Tomasello looks like a guy worth learning about. — Srap Tasmaner
He may even have said as much, I don’t know. — Srap Tasmaner
In a word, essentialism vs. materialism. — StreetlightX
There is no reason to doubt, and every reason to assume, that the brain, cells, neurons, etc., are involved with the development of language, like any aspect of growth and development. — Xtrix
You chose your philosophy (or even metaphysics) first, and then offer your support to the professor who is more closely aligned with your philosophy, and you oppose the professor who seems more aligned with an opposing philosophical camp. Is that right? — Srap Tasmaner
Although the most common practice is to invoke UG without specifying precisely what is intended, there are some specific (though mostly non-exhaustive) proposals:
– In his textbook, O’Grady (1997) proposes that UG includes both lexical categories (N, V, A, P, Adv) and functional categories (Det, Aux, Deg, Comp, Pro, Conj).
– Jackendoff’s (2002) proposal includes X-bar syntax and the linking rules ‘NP = object’, and ‘VP = action’. Pinker (1994) agrees and adds ‘subject’ and ‘object’, movement rules, and grammatical morphology.
– The textbook of Crain and Lillo-Martin (1999) does not provide an explicit list, but some of the things they claim are in UG are: wh-movement, island constraints, the subset principle, head movement, c-command, the projection principle, and the empty category principle.
– Hauser, Chomsky, and Fitch (2002) claim that there is only one thing in UG and that is the computational procedure of recursion. Chomsky (2004) claims that the only thing in UG is the syntactic operation of merge.
– Baker (2001) lists a very long set of parameters in UG, including everything from polysynthesis to ergative case to serial verbs to null subject. Fodor (2003) gives a very different list, with only a couple of overlaps, for example: V to I movement, subject initial, affix hopping, pied piping, topic marking, I to C
movement, Q inversion, and oblique topic.
– Proponents of OT approaches to syntax put into UG such well-formedness constraints as stay, telegraph, drop topic, recoverability, and MaxLex (see Haspelmath 2003 for a review).
– And Wunderlich (this special issue) has his own account of UG, which includes: distinctive features, double articulation, predication and reference, lexical categories, argument hierarchy, adjunction, and quantification (he specifically excludes many of the other things on the above lists). — via Tomasello
Grammar simply has to 'fit' what is already in the theory, which accounts for all of grammar from the get-go, the only question being how. — StreetlightX
People working on UG might agree that what they have so far is a bit Keplerian, but they’re all looking for that Copernican breakthrough simplification. — Srap Tasmaner
However, if I had to attack it, I don’t see any alternative to people who currently ridicule “mysteriansim”, like Dennett or the Churchlands. I’d say that we don’t know what we don’t know beforehand, and that many times in the past something seemed impossible, yet was achieved by a lot. Therefore, those who say that there are forever mysteries, will be proven wrong as was done before. That would be the idea. I think this completely misses the point, — Manuel
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