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From: zohrab_p@atlantis.actrix.gen.nz (Peter Zohrab)
Subject: Re: Chomksy, Significance, and Current Trends
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Date: Wed, 9 Aug 1995 07:28:23 GMT
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In article <4084i9$dml@newsbf02.news.aol.com>,
AlsoSprach <alsosprach@aol.com> wrote:
> At one point (late 60's-mid 70's), it appeared that Chomksy's generative
> grammer would have sweeping applications in many fields from music theory
> to sociology.  Then the furor died down.  Was that a good thing? Why did
> it happen? Should/can linguistics ever regain that prominance in the
> social sciences? What are the current trends?
> 
> Personally, I think Chomsky's obsession with the logical form of his
> theoretical framework has simply placed undue restraints on all programs
> of linguistic study.  It would be like mathemeticians telling physicists
> to ignore certain phenomena because the phenomena cannot be described
> mathematically yet in a way that is satisfactory to the mathemeticians. 
> So until Chomsky and his cohorts are able to develop what they consider an
> appropraite framework all sorts of fundamental aspect of language are
> ignored.  It's all a bit Byzantine.  Though I am aware of all sorts of
> interesting developments in other frameworks they all seem to have their
> growth stunted by the specter of Chomsky's approach so none of them are
> able to expand beyond the field of theoretical linguistics.
> 
> Comments?

I agree entirely, and have done for years.

Generativists get fascinated by the sheer intellectualism of Generative
Grammar  -- by the status this gives them in the university context.

Lots of university people are far too "sophisticated" to believe in truth, but
they *are* impressed by complexity.  So all these Generativists trot up and
demonstrate a lot of complex arguments, and the academic world falls about in
amazement, and grants them lots of chairs, jobs, and so on.

In fact, the bases of Generative Grammar (the Competence-Performance
distinction, and native-speaker intuitions) won't stand up to one minute's
intelligent analysis.

But the Generativists solve this problem by office politics, conference 
politics, and journal politics.

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