You start to hear about Chomsky's ideas of language long before you listen to him lecture (on YouTube) or read his writings (I didn't, much) and it seems to me that Chomsky started by articulating a profound idea: that language is built into the architecture of our minds. That seemed very sensible to me as I always thought language was more or less built into our physical anatomy.
But then, learning more about Chomsky's idea of grammar as the basis for language - thus supporting a physical metaphor - the more you start to sink into pointless details that are a distraction. Consider
noun verb noun
This cannot be a basis for language, as it is a statement of grammar not of meaning. The language version is
thing acts on thing
This describes a meaning, independent of grammar.
Since Chomsky and his disciples are such nerds, they mistake a statement of grammar for a statement of meaning - everything that is childish and naïve about those MIT/Harvard linguists. They are never going to get it and they are unqualified to talk about their Worf-Sapir bugaboo.
And while I am critiquing them, two things to follow up are: (1) so what is grammar?; and (2) what is the physical metaphor for meaning, if not grammar?
I think grammar is just making it sound good and I think the physical metaphor is that words are stored anatomically and relationships exist "just-in-time" through a narrative infrastructure that is cortical and closely related to visual and auditory areas and their perceptions.
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