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To: Mamzelle
Chomsky was and is a brilliant linguist

Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin were brilliant politicians. That doesn't mean they are worthy of respect. Nor does it mean that there political philosophies were correct.

The transformational grammar started by Chomsky is an exercise in mental gymnastics. His postulate, the univeral grammar, is totally unprovable.

Let me give you an example. Let's suppose we say that the deep structure of the number 25 is 4. So how do we start with 4 and get to 25? By applying the rules of our grammar, the transformation, to 4. So what is the transformation rule? You coud add 21 to 4. Or you could multiply by 7 and subtract 3. Or could just add 1 to it until you get to 25. Or you could add 100 and keep subtracting 1 until you get to 25.

Any of these "transformations" to 4 will yield 25. But does that prove that the deep structure of 25 is 4? And which rule is the correct one?

The entire edifice of Chomskian linguistics is built on nothing more substantial than his personal whim and the entire field of American linguistics has been duped.

102 posted on 03/16/2003 9:21:29 AM PST by stripes1776
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To: stripes1776
I have no idea of what you mean by "transformation" with those numbers, and probably don't care to figure it out. TG is simply a descriptive theory of grammar, sentence structure, as opposed to a theory of generating structure. It's neither difficult nor obfuscatory--though linguists make academic careers trying to make it so. Applying it helps to understand the sentences of obscure languages. I recall having to apply it to sentences in an African language called "Twi"--an interesting exercise. By using the constructs, I could figure out where the verbs and nouns and other parts of speech were without a dictionary to tell me the actual meaning. I'd say that was fairly brilliant on Chomsky's part.
107 posted on 03/17/2003 4:40:23 AM PST by Mamzelle
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To: stripes1776
Let's suppose we say that the deep structure of the number 25 is 4. So how do we start with 4 and get to 25

You are BS'ing. This is not an example of anything.

128 posted on 03/17/2003 4:41:40 PM PST by AndyJackson
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