Yes exactly. UG has always been hugely polarizing. Chomsky basically stomped on the comparative linguists and above all behaviorists like Skinner who didn't believe in innate language skills in the 50s. People have been after him and his paradigm ever since!
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Replying to @jmanooch @michael_nielsen
Innate language skills clearly exist, though. False dichotomy. There are language specialized regions in the brain, there are no cultures without language, etc.
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Why does “innate general language skill” have to imply that syntax is all there is to it?
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Replying to @s_r_constantin @michael_nielsen
I don't know. This is where I disagree with Chomsky. I think it's bc like Feynman & all sane souls he despises philosophy. While syntax can be and was built up at his bidding into a marvellous pseudo-computatjonal logic edifice, semantics is mushy and gets philosophical fast.
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Chomsky ruthlessly subordinated semantics to syntax in order to have a clean, sciencey paradigm and discipline. Everyone agrees what he built is epic qua syntax. Just parallel with formal semantics in linguistics is another part of social theory doing the same thing - semiotics.
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Chomsky despised that. And wanted linguistics to have nothing to do with speculative framings of meaning. Ironically the most successful challenge to UG/syntax hegemony in linguistics has come not from CS folks, but from ... semantics folks, who push a thing called pragmatics.
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Pragmatics points out that in Chomsky's ruthless syntax-led model, words like please or phenomena such as irony or deixis have no role. Ie the 'meaning of the words' may be clear. But you may miss the 'meaniing of the speaker'.
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Replying to @jmanooch @michael_nielsen
Ahhh this thing, thanks for giving me the scholarly word for it. Bane of my existence.
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Replying to @s_r_constantin @michael_nielsen
Be sure to distinguish from pragmatism in philosophy. Linguistic pragmatics is not the same.
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Replying to @jmanooch @michael_nielsen
No I know that. Linguistic pragmatics sounds like “did you mean that literally or ironically or were you just trying to get a different point across”
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Like you & I disagreeing on what Nostalgebraist meant to say and how explicitly he said it.
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Replying to @s_r_constantin @michael_nielsen
Well, pragmatics is more dynamic and context based, hence the name. If we disagree on a text, likely one of us is wrong (I'll take the L...) or the author is unclear. ;-)
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