Chomsky, Grammar, Essentialism ( Was Re: [lbo-talk] Prose Style, was Time to Get Religion)

andie nachgeborenen andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com
Thu Dec 7 13:45:10 PST 2006


You mean you think Chomsky was wrong that we have an innate capacity to produce grammatically structured linguistic expressions? What is "essentialist" about this idea, btw, and what is "essentialism"? The idea that that the capacity is innate? Note that Chomsky does not make the mistake of saying that it is rigidly manifested the same =way (since different languages have different grammars) regardless of environmental circumstances (because not only doers the grammar you use depends on the languages you learn, but some some lack the capacity entirely or can have it destroyed bad adverse physical or social circumstances? Is essential ism the the claim that there is anything innate about any aspect our behavior, the denial of the claim that wee are absolutely blank slates and all of our behavior is due to social conditioning? The term is vague in the extreme.
>
> However, I do think that Chomsky was dead wrong in
> his essentialist
> linguistic position.
>
> Joanna
>
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