I came across this debate about four years ago when some of the research was discussed. I read the New Yorker article and I am not quite sure why the debate has become a "news" item now, except for the fact that the New Yorker is a sort of cultural-intellectual arbiter and if the New Yorker notices the debate it suddenly becomes a "real" debate.
In answer to Bitch. It is not a matter of empirical testing. Chomsky assumes that his theories should be tested with research on natural languages. What Chomsky claims is that the research project of cultural anthropology and its work on language has nothing to do with his research project one way or another. If you are interested in why Chomsky makes this argument I would suggest the book "Atoms of Language" by Mark C. Baker. See especially Baker's discussion of the language of the Navajo.
I am not convinced by Everett, even on his own terms. In other words, if everything that Everett concludes from the language is correct, I don't think that he proves his case.
Jerry Monaco
On 4/24/07, bitch at pulpculture.org <bitch at pulpculture.org> wrote:
> At 09:52 PM 4/23/2007, you wrote:
> >On 4/23/07, bitch at pulpculture.org <bitch at pulpculture.org> wrote:
> >
> >It is unfair only in that it leaves off an important qualifier: he
> >thought it was pointless as far as his theories went. That is he
> >thought that there was universal grammar (actually not quite a
> >grammar--but lets stick with his earlier oversimplification) and that
> >would be the same among all peoples. He never said it would not detect
> >things of interest, just not things of interest about HIS theories.
> >(Of course he also wanted to define stuff that went much beyond his
> >theories as not being linguistics, so perhaps not so unfair.) However
> >of course it seems that these empirical tests have revealed something
> >of interest about his theories: that some of them may not be true.
> >Even if on further examination they end up not disproving any of his
> >later theories, it was perhaps a bit arrogant to assume this was
> >beyond the realm of possibility. None of this changes the fact that
> >some of his basic theories remain the foundation of modern
> >linguistics.
>
>
> Ok. But I still don't get it. If you have a theory, the point is to test it
> against empirical evidence. You would look at far-flung cultures and study
> their language to see if the claim to universality holds up. So, why would
> this be uninteresting for his theory?
>
>
>
> Bitch | Lab
> http://blog.pulpculture.org (NSFW)
>
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>