Posted on 12/07/2018 8:27:25 AM PST by Borges
He turns 94 today.
In the old days we called him Chompsky—chomping at the hog trough that is government funding (direct and indirect) of leftist hacks.
👍
95 today
“old Noam actually contributed something valuable as a linguist”
Highly debatable—imho he was a clown—a rebel without a clue.
He’s actually a very important linguist. Very influential.
“Highly debatable—imho he was a clown—a rebel without a clue.”
Chomsky’s politics had nothing at all to do with his linguistic theory.
I had conservative Christian friends who considered his theory of universal grammar to be an important contribution to their apologetics work. They had no idea that Chomsky was a radical leftist until I mentioned it to them.
Like Carter this piece of garbage will never die.
I’ve read that most if not all of his linguistic theories regarding real natural languages have been either superseded or discarded. His biggest impact has been on computer languages even though that was not its intention.
“I’ve read that most if not all of his linguistic theories regarding real natural languages have been either superseded or discarded.”
That could be. I only knew about his linguistic theories through my friends and they have both passed away.
What I gathered is that Chomsky argued that language is innate to the human mind. That the ability to understand and process language is genetic.
Their high regard for Chomsky amused me because they were diametrically opposite Chomsky in a lot of other ways.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.