"Being bilingual may delay Alzheimer's and boost brain power..."

[alex gross]

Actually, I agree with you, Angus, in fact extremely well put.  But I also 
agree with what I have written.  Let's say that maybe it's time to look a 
good deal more closely at a perspective that has been largely ignored, and 
for the reasons which I have suggested.

Very best!

alex


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Angus B. Grieve-Smith" <grvsmth at panix.com>
To: "Funknet" <funknet at mailman.rice.edu>
Sent: Thursday, February 24, 2011 2:42 PM
Subject: Re: [FUNKNET] "Being bilingual may delay Alzheimer's and boost 
brain power..."


> On Thu, February 24, 2011 1:03 pm, alex gross wrote:
>
>> One reason I am highly impressed with Lise's study (and also why I was
>> happy to learn that Anne Marie is a speech therapist) is that I have
> become > ever more certain over the years that the real center of
> language study lies
>> not in grammar at all but in language physiology and the sheer
> physicality of
>> language.
>
> Shouldn't it be up to individual scholars what the real center of their
> studies is?  I didn't like it when Chomsky told me that grammar was the
> real center, and I don't like it when you tell me that physiology is the
> real center.  I don't see any evidence that there's an objective center to
> language study independent of our perspectives.
>
> To paraphrase Bertrand Russell (and include one of Chomsky's favorite
> insults): my subfield is the real center of language, yours is peripheral,
> and hers is uninteresting.
>
> For me personally, I'm not even sure that language study has a center;
> maybe it's polycentric.
>
> -- 
> -Angus B. Grieve-Smith
>                        Saint John's University
> grvsmth at panix.com
>
>
>