With all due respect, I'm going to trust Noam Chomsky, who endorsed the book and knows a thing or two about linguistics, over you.
-
-
Setting aside basic issues that (a) Chomsky's "endorsement" of the book was 25 years ago, (b) it was not a straightforward endorsement, (c) Chomsky's views have changed significantly since then, and (d) linguistics has changed significantly since then... 1/2
3 replies 2 retweets 81 likes -
Sigh. What an endless game of moving the goal post. Is my use of "gestalt" within normal English dictionary meaning? Yes. Does knowing German give authority for judging English usage? No. Is Language Instinct a good Chomsky endorsed popular introduction to linguistics? Yes.
3 replies 0 retweets 11 likes -
I don't really have an opinion on the first two. The answer to the third one is definitely "no," if "good" involves accurately representing the state of play, including both theory and empirical evidence in contemporary linguistics.
1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes -
Okay, put aside Pinker. Find me the most modern up-to-date guide to linguistics and show me where it says that academic words borrowed from other languages cannot take on different vernacular meanings.
2 replies 0 retweets 0 likes -
Talk about goalpost moving... but sure. Pick any theory of semantics that restricts the domain to a particular range of idiolects (in this case, academic idiolects), take the conditions of use to be parasitic on that domain of idiolects, and you get a copacetic theory.
1 reply 1 retweet 4 likes -
Replying to @thephilosotroll @HeerJeet and
So that just gives you most localized relational semantics, historicist semantics, and all of the externalist-inferentialist hybrids... the combination doesn’t give you a plurality of the views in contemporary semantics, but a decent chunk of externalist views.
2 replies 0 retweets 2 likes -
So you are inventing a position that is not even held by a plurality of semanticists but could in theory be held by some. Cool.
1 reply 0 retweets 1 like -
... no, that’s held by lots of actual semanticists, but that doesn’t quite span a plurality of externalists. But if you knew f*ck all about linguistics I wouldn’t need to explain that, because you’d know these actual positions.
1 reply 0 retweets 4 likes -
Replying to @thephilosotroll @HeerJeet and
I’m offering a survey course on my Saturday during my dissertation leave, apparently.
Just sea lion garbage where I have to explain even the theories we’d cover in a 101 semantics course because someone thinks TLI is the plurality view when it’s not anyone’s contemporary view.1 reply 0 retweets 3 likes
What puzzles me is that I'm not even sure the position you're arguing is one you actually hold or just think is a position that some ("lots" is vague) people hold. Do you yourself think that gestalt doesn't have a vernacular usage distinct from academic & German roots?
-
-
I don’t have a position on that question. At this point, my reaction is that you’re engaging in pseudo intellectual hackers after telling an actual expert that your poor reading of a 25 year old Pinker book was enough.
1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes -
Replying to @thephilosotroll @HeerJeet and
As I’ve said elsewhere, of the people who have background in semantics here, I’m probably the most sympathetic to your original claim. I’m also the least sympathetic to your bullsh*t invocation of bad linguistics as a defense.
0 replies 0 retweets 1 like
End of conversation
New conversation -
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.