Chomsky -- put up or blah blah

[Lisa & Ian Murray]

>>No -- the use of "intended" is just a bit of
shorthand.  The hypothesis that language acquisition
is innate, as I learned it, points out that in
acquiring language, the brain must be learning *rules*
which can generate an infinite number of sentences.
But how can *rules* be imparted to an organism that
hasn't acquired language?  And if language acquisition
were just an ensemble of behaviors, then the number of
sentences in a language would be finite, and they're
not (to the non-Chomskities here, the argument I
learned for the infinity of possible sentences rests
on an appeal to  recursion in the phrase structure and
transformation rules, so you may want to pick on me
for that).  Therefore (and to remove the offending
word "intended"), the brain must have the capacity to
learn language.

Cheerfully awaiting a downpour of abuse from Chomsky's
supporters and detractors alike,
--
Curtis
==========

No abuse but a query on the argument for the infinity of possible sentences.
Got source[s]?  BTW the Univ. of WA's William Calvin
http://faculty.washington.edu/wcalvin/ just published a book with Derek
Bickerton that tries to marry Chomsky and Darwin.  Haven't looked at it but
those who are into the stuff might want to check it out...

Ian