Sunday, 24 June, one of Hong Kong's English newspapers (South China Morning Post) printed an article on page 9 of the international section titled Shaking language to the core. The article reports on the research of Daniel Everett, associated with Illinois State University. His 30 year long field research with a tiny Brazilian tribe, the Piraha, has discovered that at least one group of human beings on this plant do not use recursives, in spite of Chomsky's tenet that this is one of the things hardwired into humans' ability to learn and use language.
I do not want to start a fire fight here. I am not interested in your opinions on Chomsky. What I do want to know is what anyone else has learned about this phenomenon, and your sources.
Taking on Chomsky?
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Metamorfose
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I'm not knowledable enough on this but I've been following this discussion, here is one interesting excerpt straight from the horse's mouth, this is available at orkut so that's why I'm posting it here:
If you want to check (most of the comments are in Portuguese though)
http://www.orkut.com/CommMsgs.aspx?cmm= ... 0192663126
To: Noam Chomsky
Sent: Thursday, April 19, 2007 2:49 PM
Subject: Hello again!
Sir N. Chomsky, (I'm Mario from Brazil, the one who asked you about the MIT) after talking to you I got a message that had as main subjetc the Pirahãs's case. I cannot deny that it has impressed me. But I'd like to read the paper about this such bombastic brazilian language, written by Everett. If you had it, could you send the paper to me by email? We do not have this paper in my college.
I have read a little bit about it on internet and newspaper, Folha de São Paulo, I mean!
I also want to ask you some question, and I will be very glad to hear your answers ( I will tell them to my college linguistics' groups)
1. What do you think of this paper from Everett? (I think you have read it already, haven't you?)
2. If his thoughts are correct, I mean empirically have been comproved, what will you do from now and on with your Language theory? (increase it?; rethink it? or stop it? I mean)
3. Would you like to come down to Brazil and verify on your own the language before concluding something?
I am really interested in hearing your answers. N. Chomsky I did not try to offend you, maybe you can think I meant!
I will wait anxiouly for your answers!!
Thank you!
And Chomsky's answer:
De: Noam Chomsky <[email protected]>
Para: "Mario Junior (by way of Noam Chomsky
Enviadas: Sábado, 21 de Abril de 2007 21:18:58
Assunto: Re: Hello again!
Sorry, I think I may have sent you a blank message by mistake.
I read the Folha article. For a newspaper report, it was not bad. I received Everett's paper, but did not keep it. It merely stated claims, with hardly any evidence. I did keep the detailed analysis of Piraha, and Everett's claims about it, by David Pesetsky and others, mentioned I believe in the Folha article. I may have kept Everett's attempt to respond. But if you are interested in following this up, you should contact Everett, or David Pesetsky ([email protected]).
There are basically two questions. One is whether Everett's current factual claims (quite distinct from his earlier extensive work) about Piraha are correct. Pesetsky et al. argue that they are not. But that you can pursue if you are interested.
The second question is whether Everett's grandiose conclusions about his own magnificent achievements and their significance are correct. About that, it is hard to comment, since they are internally contradictory. Thus he agrees of course that there is a dedicated language faculty, but claims that he has disproven UG (universal grammar). This claim is what creates the excitement, and the sense that there is some grand conflict, but it is pure nonsense. UG is a topic, not a theory. It is, by definition, the correct theory of the language faculty, whatever that turns out to be. Everett's grandiose claim is as if someone were to say that there is a human visual system but I have shown that there can be no theory of it -- it works by magic. Such claims cannot be discussed. The most sympathetic comment one can make is that he is profoundly confused. This is only the first of many illustrations.
don't see any reason to come to Brazil to investigate his claims about a particular language, which as far as we know is no more unusual than dozens of other Brazilian languages that have been studied by linguists who are less concerned with self-aggrandizement than Everett -- or, for that matter, no more unusual than English or Portuguese. And whatever the facts about Piraha, they cannot, as a matter of logic, bear on the existence of UG, any more than some new discovery about the human visual system can bear on the question of whether there exists a theory of the human visual system. The rest of his claims collapse to absurdity when they are analyzed, leaving only the factual question of whether his current claims about properties of the Piraha language and culture are correct, no more interesting than similar proposals about innumerable other languages.
NC
José
If you want to check (most of the comments are in Portuguese though)
http://www.orkut.com/CommMsgs.aspx?cmm= ... 0192663126
To: Noam Chomsky
Sent: Thursday, April 19, 2007 2:49 PM
Subject: Hello again!
Sir N. Chomsky, (I'm Mario from Brazil, the one who asked you about the MIT) after talking to you I got a message that had as main subjetc the Pirahãs's case. I cannot deny that it has impressed me. But I'd like to read the paper about this such bombastic brazilian language, written by Everett. If you had it, could you send the paper to me by email? We do not have this paper in my college.
I have read a little bit about it on internet and newspaper, Folha de São Paulo, I mean!
I also want to ask you some question, and I will be very glad to hear your answers ( I will tell them to my college linguistics' groups)
1. What do you think of this paper from Everett? (I think you have read it already, haven't you?)
2. If his thoughts are correct, I mean empirically have been comproved, what will you do from now and on with your Language theory? (increase it?; rethink it? or stop it? I mean)
3. Would you like to come down to Brazil and verify on your own the language before concluding something?
I am really interested in hearing your answers. N. Chomsky I did not try to offend you, maybe you can think I meant!
I will wait anxiouly for your answers!!
Thank you!
And Chomsky's answer:
De: Noam Chomsky <[email protected]>
Para: "Mario Junior (by way of Noam Chomsky
Enviadas: Sábado, 21 de Abril de 2007 21:18:58
Assunto: Re: Hello again!
Sorry, I think I may have sent you a blank message by mistake.
I read the Folha article. For a newspaper report, it was not bad. I received Everett's paper, but did not keep it. It merely stated claims, with hardly any evidence. I did keep the detailed analysis of Piraha, and Everett's claims about it, by David Pesetsky and others, mentioned I believe in the Folha article. I may have kept Everett's attempt to respond. But if you are interested in following this up, you should contact Everett, or David Pesetsky ([email protected]).
There are basically two questions. One is whether Everett's current factual claims (quite distinct from his earlier extensive work) about Piraha are correct. Pesetsky et al. argue that they are not. But that you can pursue if you are interested.
The second question is whether Everett's grandiose conclusions about his own magnificent achievements and their significance are correct. About that, it is hard to comment, since they are internally contradictory. Thus he agrees of course that there is a dedicated language faculty, but claims that he has disproven UG (universal grammar). This claim is what creates the excitement, and the sense that there is some grand conflict, but it is pure nonsense. UG is a topic, not a theory. It is, by definition, the correct theory of the language faculty, whatever that turns out to be. Everett's grandiose claim is as if someone were to say that there is a human visual system but I have shown that there can be no theory of it -- it works by magic. Such claims cannot be discussed. The most sympathetic comment one can make is that he is profoundly confused. This is only the first of many illustrations.
don't see any reason to come to Brazil to investigate his claims about a particular language, which as far as we know is no more unusual than dozens of other Brazilian languages that have been studied by linguists who are less concerned with self-aggrandizement than Everett -- or, for that matter, no more unusual than English or Portuguese. And whatever the facts about Piraha, they cannot, as a matter of logic, bear on the existence of UG, any more than some new discovery about the human visual system can bear on the question of whether there exists a theory of the human visual system. The rest of his claims collapse to absurdity when they are analyzed, leaving only the factual question of whether his current claims about properties of the Piraha language and culture are correct, no more interesting than similar proposals about innumerable other languages.
NC
José
no serious challenge
Daniel Everett is a cultural anthropologist. His claims have already been challenged by linguists Andrew Ira Nevins, David Pesetsky, and Cilene Rodrigues:
http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/000411
also:
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/pesetsky-ling.html
http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/000411
also:
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/pesetsky-ling.html
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fluffyhamster
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JuanTwoThree
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Anuradha Chepur
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All that was quoted is a personal email, and we don't know if it is fact or fiction. In any case Chomsky was asked for his opinion and he gave it without mincing words. The kind of modesty with which he spared the time to take the silly questions in the silly email, and also respond to it, is rare and commendable for a person of his stature.
Last edited by Anuradha Chepur on Tue Jun 26, 2007 10:35 am, edited 1 time in total.
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JuanTwoThree
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http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007 ... ntPage=all
is a lively summary of the situation.
On second thoughts I'm not convinced that Chomsky did really write that e-mail.
is a lively summary of the situation.
On second thoughts I'm not convinced that Chomsky did really write that e-mail.
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Stephen Jones
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There are many articles on this, and most are particularly bad examples of so called scientific-journalism.
There are three good articles here discussing the matter. Note that Everett himself denies claims his theories disprove UG in the first link.
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/language ... .html#more
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/language ... 03162.html
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/%7Emyl/langua ... 04592.html
From 1971 (when he made my Sanskrit tutor wildly happy by admitting its existence in a lecture - which I managed to sleep solidly through) up to 1995, Chomsky admitted the existence of the middle layer. If you have the middle layer Everett's work becomes no threat at all. Roeper discusses this in the third link.
There are three good articles here discussing the matter. Note that Everett himself denies claims his theories disprove UG in the first link.
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/language ... .html#more
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/language ... 03162.html
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/%7Emyl/langua ... 04592.html
From 1971 (when he made my Sanskrit tutor wildly happy by admitting its existence in a lecture - which I managed to sleep solidly through) up to 1995, Chomsky admitted the existence of the middle layer. If you have the middle layer Everett's work becomes no threat at all. Roeper discusses this in the third link.
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JuanTwoThree
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