I want to revisit something I wrote earlier:
Chomsky offers "poverty of input" arguments, and others (the empirical types dear to Miles ;-)) point out the startling applicability of the UG to all languages (AFAIK -- every now and then some Deepak Chopra type person offers that the Gojambi, a remote tribe in the impenetrable forests of Ecuador, have no word for "I" and do not use this or that sentence construction at all; but most such claims seem to be either exaggerated or irrelevant to the UG thesis). Again AFAIK, the UG stands unrefuted.* Further, the base work done by Chomsky w.r.t syntax shall always remain foundational, given its value to such fields as Computer Science.
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This collection of disparate threads would move more smoothly if posters would knock off including more asides and parenthetical observations than there is core content in their posts.
Here ravi fails to say almost anything about what I presume is the paragraph's meat, the "poverty of input" argument. Please explain -- and without apologies and save for another time asides, qualifications, etc.
Carrol