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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Sennin Senior Member Bulgaria Joined 5815 days ago 1457 posts - 1759 votes  5 sounds | Message 9 of 21 14 October 2008 at 8:15am | IP Logged | ||
I'm under the impression that Chomsky is the key figure when it comes to modern linguistics. Even if one skips the earlier trends and movements, it is essential to examine his contributions because they are central to the current state of this field. I guess it is a good idea to read his book Syntactic Structures. Recently I venture in linguistics too (computational linguistics in my case) and so I definitely intend to read it. This is my guess, but please do take it with caution. I'm into computer science and just a "wanna-be linguist" ;p. Edited by Sennin on 14 October 2008 at 8:28am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6484 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 10 of 21 14 October 2008 at 11:25am | IP Logged | ||
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I'm also under the impression that Chomsky is a key figure in modern linguistics, and as you can see in the quote above I even think that transformational grammar in principle could deliver a valid scientific description of living languages. But in some ways the transformational grammar has had a negative impact on linguistics. The main problem is that it is too hermetic even for the people who teach languages - I have yet to se a textbook that is formulated in transformational terms. Well, you might say, if it is stronger than the 'old' grammars you might still have to acknowledge it as the one valid scientific theory of our time.Quantum mechanics and string theory are also difficult subjects, but they can do things that Newtonian mechanics couldn't do. But I haven't seen any proof that transformational grammar is better when it comes to describing living languages than the combination of syntactic field models with a modicum of transformations that is the logical continuation of classical grammar.
At the onset of his career Chomsky actually decided to prove that transformational grammar was better than its main competitors. He made short work of the theory that you can construct a sentence word for word from left to right. But he couldn't find a conclusive proof that the so called constituant structure grammars (= syntactic field models) were wrong, and so he basically left them aside with a remark that his own transformational grammar probably was stronger on the predictive side. This Chomskian revolution in some ways reminds me of the way structural grammar supplanted historical linguistics. No one has ever found anything that was better to explain the diversity of languages than the dusty old historical grammars (sound laws and all that), but it just became unfashionable to deal with those models. And constituent structure grammars with transformations is still a valid and practical way to describe languages, but they has just fallen out of favor with American and to some degree also European theoretical linguists, who have become accustomed to formulate their discussions of subtle details of syntax in terms of transformational grammar. As a side effect the rise of transformational grammar has also led to a situation where some linguists apparently have forgotten all about the existence of other languages than English, but this is NOT an automatic effect of the theory. Chomsky is probably the least polyglot major linguist since the antiquity, but he did open up for the search for linguistical universals (I almost wrote 'the holy grail'), and this still unproved prediction forces his recalcitrant disciples to study other languages. Edited by Iversen on 14 October 2008 at 11:50am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Sennin Senior Member Bulgaria Joined 5815 days ago 1457 posts - 1759 votes 5 sounds | Message 11 of 21 14 October 2008 at 6:44pm | IP Logged | ||
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Iversen, I see your point now. The main concern is that Chomsky's formulation is way too abstract and detached from the human aspect of language. It is not necessary a positive development when it comes to the language-learning related topics in linguistics.
Ironically, it is exactly this extreme formality of his notion that makes linguistics compatible with computer science. The previous grammars are simply too vague to be implemented computationally (but they are probably more "human-friendly"). By the way, machine translation is stuck in a runt right now. Not because there are no ways to improve it, but because big corporations are not willing to take risks with new technologies. They prefer gradual improvement... so they just tweak the old proven methods (which are statistical and work only on the morphological and basic word-sequence levels; not the syntax). Edited by Sennin on 14 October 2008 at 6:50pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Tigresuisse Triglot Senior Member SwitzerlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5786 days ago 182 posts - 180 votes Speaks: Italian*, English, German Studies: Russian | Message 12 of 21 15 October 2008 at 8:35am | IP Logged | ||
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Hi TEL !!!
a thing you could do (and I did) is to find a university's faculty and look online for the bibliography of the books a student has to read to go to exams. Just give a look at all the different topics and what kind of books they have as must reading and optional reading. So you can have an idea. I did the same with the Asian Studies Faculty in Rome, where I can't attend but they have such a great Japanese studies in different fields, like literature and so on ... Cheers Marta 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| TheElvenLord Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5861 days ago 915 posts - 927 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Cornish, English* Studies: Spanish, French, German Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 13 of 21 15 October 2008 at 10:02am | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks Tigresuisse
But what is a University's faculty? Thanks TEL 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Tigresuisse Triglot Senior Member SwitzerlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5786 days ago 182 posts - 180 votes Speaks: Italian*, English, German Studies: Russian | Message 14 of 21 15 October 2008 at 10:43am | IP Logged | ||
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faculty
Noun pl -ties 1. one of the powers of the mind or body, such as memory, sight, or hearing 2. any ability or power, either inborn or acquired: his faculties of reasoning were considerable 3. a. a department within a university or college b. its staff c. Chiefly US & Canad all the teaching staff of a university, school, or college [Latin facultas capability] I meant 3a. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| TheElvenLord Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5861 days ago 915 posts - 927 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Cornish, English* Studies: Spanish, French, German Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 15 of 21 15 October 2008 at 10:57am | IP Logged | ||
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Okay thanks!
TEL 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Sennin Senior Member Bulgaria Joined 5815 days ago 1457 posts - 1759 votes 5 sounds | Message 16 of 21 15 October 2008 at 1:27pm | IP Logged | ||
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How old are you exactly? ^_^
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