Chomsky -- Put up or blah blah

[William S. Lear]

On Tuesday, March 28, 2000 at 13:59:25 (-0800) Scott Martens writes:
>> Gravity is also counterintuitive --- Newton called it "occult" ---
>> but, so what?
>
>> To say that is not especially useful is vague at best.  Not useful for
>> what?  For writing better rebuttals to someone's vague arguments?>
>> Perhaps not.  Better for understanding how language develops and
>> operates?  I beg to differ...
>
>Okay.  Name one phenomena explained by GG that can't be explained by
>dependency syntax, word grammar, or any other significant linguistic
>theory.  What insight has GG provided on the subject of language
>acquisition, language education, or linguistic imparements?  Has any
>outcome of GG been comparable to the success of Tesniere's structural
>syntax or Russian traditions of dependency grammar in explaining
>linguistic phenomena.  Name one study or experimental result, obtained
>after 1959, that lends supports the existence of grammar functions
>mechanically separate from semantic or morphological functions.

Most of these are fair challenges, and I'll try to do a bit of
research and get back to you.  Expect to hear from me in a few weeks.

Bill