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[adventious]

https://daneverettbooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/HarpersMagazine-2016-08-0086105.pdf

Wolfe's suits made me jealous when I was younger man...

[LongShiKong]

What timing!

This appears to be much less a denouncement of UG than the godfather of the regressive left himself. It'll be interesting to see how Salon reviews Wolfe's polemic after how it 'scored' last year's (non-)'debate' or---depending on your politics--- 'attempt at dialogue' with Sam Harris.

[adventious]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/his-white-suit-unsullied-by-research-tom-wolfe-tries-to-take-down-charles-darwin/2016/08/31/8ee6d4ee-4936-11e6-90a8-fb84201e0645_story.html?utm_term=.206694c7c6d0

But Wolfe’s argument ultimately backfires, for the book grossly distorts the theory of evolution, the claims of linguistics and the controversies about their connection. Finally, after misleading the reader for nearly 200 pages, Wolfe proposes his own theory of how language began — a theory far less plausible than the ones he mocks.

[DMcK]

http://facultyoflanguage.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/the-sludge-at-bottom-of-barel.html?m=1

I too enjoyed reading Wolfe's piece for the maximum effort he's put in to creating his wonderfully colourful personal attack. It's a shame that he completely ignores the obvious, that even if Everett were correct, which he's not, that his findings would have no implications for UG.

[fluffyhamster]

So when will the UG Language Course: "Turkish" be ready to pre-order? I'm tired of learning foreign languages in masses of trivial detail and want something that makes it almost as easy (other than flicking a few switches or pressing a few buttons on or off here and there) as English. Thanks.

[adventious]

great blog!

Evidence Rebuts Chomsky's Theory of Language Learning
Scientific American, Sept.7, 2016

A key flaw in Chomsky’s theories is that when applied to language learning, they stipulate that young children come equipped with the capacity to form sentences using abstract grammatical rules. (The precise ones depend on which version of the theory is in­­voked.) Yet much research now shows that language acquisition does not take place this way. Rather young children begin by learning simple grammatical patterns; then, gradually, they intuit the rules behind them bit by bit.

Thus, young children initially speak with only concrete and simple grammatical constructions based on specific patterns of words: “Where’s the X?”; “I wanna X”; “More X”; “It’s an X”; “I’m X-ing it”; “Put X here”; “Mommy’s X-ing it”; “Let’s X it”; “Throw X”; “X gone”; “Mommy X”; “I Xed it”; “Sit on the X”; “Open X”; “X here”; “There’s an X”; “X broken.” Later, children combine these early patterns into more complex ones, such as “Where’s the X that Mommy Xed?”

[fluffyhamster]

I'm not sure I follow you, Adventious. You say that a blog overflowing with innatist froth is great, but in the very same breath link to arguments from Tomasello (a functionalist).

Now I'm not saying that one shouldn't ever read or present pretty opposing viewpoints, but what are people to make of your posting the Tomasello link (other than that it is another supposedly "good" read)? Care to give your reasoning and views? What is good or bad about that blog or indeed T's article?

Agree about Wolfe's book though, it sounds like trash.

[fluffyhamster]

Using the word 'good' though suggests an advocacy (urgh, sounding like you LOL), but if you didn't really mean anything by it then fine, you didn't really mean anything by it. Have fun dropping names at the cocktail party.

[fluffyhamster]

So you'd prefer to concentrate on my inexplicable transformation of your 'Great blog!' to 'a good read' than to explain just what is so great about Generative theorizing? I'm sure readers will find that very interesting, and helpful too, especially if they're busy but somehow feeling browbeaten into paying at least lip service to Chomsky or whoever else.

[Mr. Kalgukshi]

Several inappropriate postings have been deleted. Thread is now locked. Member is now an ex-member. Trolls don't last long here. Really, they don't.