[lbo-talk] Kenneally, some notes and background

[Chuck Grimes]

My understanding is that an important part of Chomsky's work was
the hypothesis of the "autonomy of syntax", that it makes sense
to study the syntactic properties of language without regard for
those other issues. Not denying the existence or importance of
those issues, just saying that syntax could also be examined
without taking them into account. Sandy Harris

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I haven't read anything of Chompsky's, except his politic essays now
and then, so I can comment on syntax or his analysis of lanugage. 

Sure it makes sense to study language through linguistically derived
concepts. It sounds like that's what linguistics does---independent of
other areas of study.

But I take it that Kenneally wants to step out of that box and start
looking at language differntly. So there is a dilemma. How much of say
the background of anthropological study of language does a linguist
want to incorporate? Psychology is another field that has a similar
dilemma. They have their theories of learning and development, derived
from their own kind of empirical work. They were forced early on to
start dealing with the brain as a biological entity and there is a
kind of dissonance between say psychology and psychiatry...

CG