Alternatives to Chomsky

[John Moore]

At 07:38 AM 12/8/99 PST, bruce richman wrote:

>     It has become very clear in recent years that Chomsky's generative
>calculus model of linguistics has no relevance at all to anything about
>actual language.  It has also become clear that the main generative notion
>of the innateness of language is based on flimsy, non-existent evidence.
>     Despite this, and despite the fact that many people in many different
>fields are now actually studying real language in realisitic, empirical
>ways, and despite the fact that many people intuitively understand the
>emptiness of generative claims and practices, it still remains true, that to
>the world at large, Chomsky's theories are somehow considered an important
>"scientific breakthrough."
>     So, the time has come that those of us who want to start a new paradigm
>for language studies, who want to begin an empirical way of studying real
>language, should simply explain why the entire Chomskyan method must be
>thrown away.


I agree that there are severe problems with the way much work within the
Chomskyan paradigm has been conducted, but I wouldn't agree that this means
that it "has no relevance at all to anything about actual language."
Furthermore, very good empirical work has come out of the generative
tradition.  I would stop and consider what would be lost by throwing the
entire generative methodology away.   Finally, there are a number of
generative frameworks.  Do the above comments apply equally to P&P,
Minimalism, LFG, HPSG, OT., etc.?  How much of this is going to be thrown
away in this sweeping paradigm shift - do any of these approaches offer any
insight that one might want to keep?

John Moore
http://ling.ucsd.edu/~moore/