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From: curry@hpl.hp.com (Bo Curry)
Subject: Re: What's innate? (Was Re: Artificial Neural Networks and Cognition
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Date: Wed, 8 Feb 1995 02:37:45 GMT
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: In article <D3nA3L.GKD@hpl.hp.com> curry@hpl.hp.com (Bo Curry) writes:
: >
: >Chomsky's work includes Germanic, Asian, and many other languages.
: >It is just those approximations, and ultimate capabilities,
: >which are *common to all known languages* which provide evidence
: >for universal grammar. There are many such commonalities, and they
: >are very difficult to explain under any alternative hypothesis
: >I am aware of (precisely because of the many cultural and
: >environmental differences you point out).
: >
: >Bo

Gerard Malecki (vlsi_lib@netcom.com) wrote:
: I had not been following this thread, but what is Chomsky's UG supposed
: to be anyway? Couldn't the similarities between languages be simply 
: because there isn't really much to play around with in the first place?
: In English, usually we have action phrases in which the verb is in
: between the subject and the object (something like infix) while in a few
: other languages that I am aware of (like French or the south Indian
: languages), the verb follows the subject and object, like RPN. Nest
: phrases inside one another and you get two completely different structures
: that mean the same thing. 

Well, it's a lifetime of work by a most prolific writer, not to
mention a large school (some would say, a mafia) of students and
grandstudents. I'm actually more familiar with the writings of
the school than those of the master, though I am not by any stretch
an expert. But, it's gonna be hard to summarize all of that in
a short post on the net.

Chomsky, et al, have (believe it or not) thought deeply about grammars,
and they haven't overlooked anything obvious. 

Bo
