University of Toronto Department of Linguistics Blog
September 14, 2016
Dan Milway's response to a Scientific American article on Universal Grammar
Dan Milway (Ph.D.) recently wrote a response to a popular science article in Scientific American that presented a grim view of Chomsky's idea of Universal Grammar in linguistics. Dan's response, "Don’t believe the rumours. Universal Grammar is alive and well." (available here), makes reference to some of the research going on in this department. The original article, "Evidence Rebuts Chomsky's Theory of Language Learning" by Paul Ibbotson and Michael Tomasello, is available here.
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Loved the article. The *but* in this sentence doesn't sit right with me. I know it's kind of not the point, but wanted to throw it out there. "Because UG is such a solid theory, throwing language data at it doesn’t kill it, but makes it better."
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