Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!das-news2.harvard.edu!news2.near.net!satisfied.apocalypse.org!news.mathworks.com!uunet!psinntp!scylla!daryl
From: daryl@oracorp.com (Daryl McCullough)
Subject: Re: What's innate?
Message-ID: <1995Mar6.142537.14719@oracorp.com>
Organization: Odyssey Research Associates, Inc.
Date: Mon, 6 Mar 1995 14:25:37 GMT
Lines: 42

rickert@cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:

> This began with my criticism of Pinker.  If Pinker simply wants to
> say:

> 	I have a theory about what is grammatical, and according to
> 	my theory sentences with nestings 100 deep are grammatical,
> 	even though people don't use such sentences;

People never say "The effete mouse gratuitously ate the punctilious
space shuttle", either, but that isn't because it is ungrammatical.
There are many criteria that affect what sentences people actually
produce, other than grammar. For example, sentences are constrained by
the meaning that one wishes to convey, and they are also constrained
by pragmatic considerations---sentences that are too complex will
probably not be understood, and are extremely difficult to produce
correctly. Why do you want to make it a rule of *grammar* that sentences
nested 100 deep are forbidden?

> then that would be fine.  I would have no argument against that
> view.  But Pinker also wants to say:

> 	How dare those language mavens write about what is
> 	grammatical.  They have a theory about what is grammatical
> 	and are using that theory for their criticisms.  But what is
> 	grammatical is not based on a theory, it is based on usage.

> I find that to be inconsistent, and that is the basis for my
> objection.  Pinker can't have it both ways.  If, instead, Pinker had
> criticized the language mavens for inventing their own ideas about
> grammar instead of accepting the Gospel according to Chomsky, he at
> least would have avoided the inconsistency.

He's not being inconsistent. Claiming that grammar is based on usage
is *not* the same thing is saying that the set of grammatical
sentences is identical with the set of sentences people actually
utter, because there are other constraints on utterances other than
grammatical ones.

Daryl McCullough
ORA Corp.
Ithaca, NY
