Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!rochester!udel!gatech!swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!utnut!utgpu!pindor
From: pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca (Andrzej Pindor)
Subject: Re: What's innate?
Message-ID: <D4ts4F.M75@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca>
Organization: UTCC Public Access
References: <1995Feb28.141459.8696@oracorp.com>
Date: Thu, 2 Mar 1995 18:17:02 GMT
Lines: 82

In article <1995Feb28.141459.8696@oracorp.com>,
Daryl McCullough <daryl@oracorp.com> wrote:
>pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca (Andrzej Pindor) writes:
>
>>>...maybe that is because Chomsky was very vague about
>>>what *he* meant. But in that case, it seems to me that Neil should be
>>>attacking the vagueness, instead of saying that the poverty of
>>>stimulus argument works as well for driving or juggling.
>
>>Why? Indicating that the same (POS) arguments applies for other skills
>>too, where it seems rather silly, exposes its vagueness.
>
>But it seemed to me that POS *doesn't* apply to other skills, for
>various reasons. How does misusing an argument show that the argument
>is wrong?
Neil's argument was that the idea of POS is so vague that it can very well
apply to other skills. And I agree with him. What are criteria of POS?
Are there any well defined criteria which may be applied to show that in case
of language learning there is POS, but not in case of learning to drive?
>
>>As I have stated in my other posting it seems to me that it depends on
>>what we mean by "grammatical". If by "grammatical" we mean conforming
>>to an abstract set of rules created by linguists as a phenomenological
>>tool for organizing observed language into small set of generating
>>principles, then such phrase are "grammatical" by definition. However,
>>if by "grammatical" we meant "used in real speach", then they are
>>not.
>
>Grammatical definitely *doesn't* mean that! There are many factors
>that influence what people actually say besides grammar. It is
>influenced by meaning (what do you want to say?), by pragmatics (is
>this sentence getting too long and complicated to follow?), by the
>vocabulary of the speaker, by subtle nuances of the words.
>
Well, I'd thought that aspects of language (grammar in this case) are
determined by use of language by people. Are you saying that I am wrong?
For instance the grammar of English is determined by studying how certain
group of people (English speakers) speak, no? To study the grammar of
Australian Aborigins a linguist goes to where they live and listens to them, 
no? Why would it be called a grammar of Australian Aborigines language if 
this is not the case?

>>From what I have seen I have an impression that linguists
>>sometimes assume an attitude: "let's not get confused with facts, they
>>will spoil our simple, beautiful theory". Of course linguists are not
>>the only ones who fall in such a trap.
>
>What facts do you think linguists are confused about? Everyone agrees
>that people don't naturally utter sentences that contain 100 nested
>relative clauses. However, there are simpler explanations (processing
>limitations, for example) this than saying that they are
>ungrammatical.
>
Well, let me cite Jerrold J. Katz from his "Metaphysics of Meaning". He is 
concerned mainly about semantics, but his comments exemplify an attitude
which I am reffering to:
"I think that human cognitive potential, regardless of how idealized, is an 
insufficient basis for the representation of languages and their inherent 
sentence-forming potential. I reject idealization, with its empirical 
starting point, as a suitable model for theories, modeling them instead on
mathematical theories." (ibid. p. 254)
Fine, if you after language (grammar) as a mathematical-type theory, you do 
not have to concern yourself with empirical data (as obviously Katz does not
want to), but then language is no longer relevant to the working of the mind.
If however language is based on empirical facts, is considered a product of
the human mind, then the above statement is a clear attempt to avoid the
frustrating nitty-gritty of reality by escaping into a land of our fantasies.
In one of my previous posts I cited A. Lavoisier (from paper by M. Minsky on
frames), who comments on this common tendency.

Andrzej
>Daryl McCullough
>ORA Corp.
>Ithaca, NY
>


-- 
Andrzej Pindor                        The foolish reject what they see and 
University of Toronto                 not what they think; the wise reject
Instructional and Research Computing  what they think and not what they see.
pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca                           Huang Po
