the first question mister Chomsky comes
from Chris
Christoph Gudrow how have your ideas
on universal grammar
changed over the years are you more or
less convinced to the theory now then
you were initially ok well there's
there's a lot of confusion about the
notion universal grammar
you never universal grammar had a
traditional meaning
but in modern linguistics last 50 years
or so
it's had a technical meaning which is
not and related to the traditional
meaning when is not identical either
universal grammer's just the name for
the theory
over the genetic component of the
language faculty
I'll I mean transparently there some
genetic component
right there's a reason say way my
granddaughter
a reflexively identified some part of
her
environment as language related
which is no small trick nobody knows
outer duplicate that
a and then more or less reflexively
picked up the capacity that
we're all now using whereas her pet
the say kitten were chimpanzee
your song were murder whatever it may be
with exactly the same
in goods couldn't even take the first
step can identify party the environment
is language related obviously not the
later steps
whether two possible answers to how that
happens
one is it's a miracle the other is
there's a
she has some specific genetic capacity
that's
like the capacity that Hatter grew
arms and not wings would say just some
fixed
Berhad a mammalian visual system but not
a
insect visual system know if this is not
controversial for anything except
human higher mental faculties for some
reason when
people investigate human higher mental
faculties
they have to be insane you know
you can't accept the approach that we
take to everything else in the world
the kind with the methodological dualism
everything else in the world we study
by the standard methods of science but
we talk about human
higher mental faculties we have become
mystics so therefore the controversy
about the existence
%uh universal grammar which is like a
bit which means a controversy about
whether
there is some genetic property that
distinguishes
humans from everybody else a
which leads to these the ability to do
doing what we're not doing but there
shouldn't be any controversy about that
the only question is what is it
well there have been theories about it
from
the nineteen fifties when these studies
began up to the present
and it's a living field so they keep
changing so in that sense yes mine
use about universal grammar keep
changing
say when I'll and walked into my office
is a graduate student told me I was
wrong about everything
so okay my own views change no a but the
in that sense sure there's going to be
constant change until the field is
this piercers did or something and it's
a long long way to go these are not
trivial questions
a the that sort of general tendency of
change
not every link was would agree by any
means such personal
opinions a in the early stages
win the first question was asked
seriously about fifty years ago as to
how we are capable of doing what we do
the all the time how are we capable love
understanding producing a expressions
which you
we've never heard which may have never
been uttered in the history language in
do it over infinite Ranger were very
strange properties that they have a soon
as you look at them
how can we do it the only answer seemed
to be
that each of us has a highly intricate
computational system in the brain which
yields these very specific results but
that
then poses a paradox because it must be
the case that we all
all humans have the same genetic
capacitor
with marginal variations the reason it
is if you take girl
a child from say build a hundred gather
tribe in the Amazon
and the child is raised in I'll
Cambridge Mass
it'll the perfect made this become old
graduate student studying quantum
physics at MIT with no different from
anyone else
him and conversely so we all have the
same capacity
as were less understood why the capacity
developed a very recently an
evolutionary time
probably in some window between 200,000
and fifty thousand years ago something
like that
and that's just the flicker when I'm so
whatever happened
never changed except extremely
marginally
so we're all fundamentally identical for
all practical purposes
human genetic variation is very slight
anyway
superficial differences with not very
profound
foreign than outside the
extraterrestrial observer looking at us
the way we
look at frogs which is only one
hume and one language with minor
variations
a so on the one hand this gotta be
uniform
the other hand the it seemed to be the
case that
each particular language had a highly
intricate and complex
system rules computational system and
they're very different from one another
and that is a paradox in fact I'll
serious paradox well over the years
there have been
efforts to the deal with the to try to
overcome the paradox here a major step
was taken in here views on universal
grammar at least
for many of us did change radically was
around 1980
I'll between you're there yeah ones
Terfel you when your a different view
the matter
serve crystallized what's called
sometimes called the principles and
parameters you
the picture that the principle that
there are fixed principles which are
really invariant nobody has to acquire
them there
abortive universal grammar and then
there's a number
options that can be taken call
parameters
that the child has to pick up from
experience
and they have to be pretty simple you
have to be able pick them up from
limited evidence because that's all
there is
so for example and some languages like
English the
that's called ahead first language
so the verb precedes the object then a
preposition proceeds
the object to preposition and so on
other languages like the Japanese are
almost the mirror image
the the verb follows the objective being
post positions not prepositions and so
on so liners are virtually mirror images
of each other
and you have to septa parameter child
has to set the parameter which is %uh my
talking English German talking Japanese
and that can be to be determined from
very simple bater so that's good
reasonable to assume a parameter a and
the hope was that you could find some
finite
set of parameters like a a finite
switchbox
where you set the switch childhood sets
which is one way or another
and can do it on the basis of fairly
simple data and then once this enters
into
I'll predetermine system with principals
you get things which superficially look
very different that are actually almost
identical
on just differing a superficial choices
well if you work that out you have
solved the paradox
too long way to work that out but that
made it possible at least to confront
the issue seriously without facing an
immediate
them yourself contradictions and it's
sort of a lot older
really rich period over research in a
query
nothing like getting a thousands of
years I've history of study of language
molest 25-30 years over a wide variety
of
type logically different languages to
new questions at a depth we could never
been proposed before sometimes answers a
leading to new questions and so on been
a very lively period
and also raised another question what
about the principles where do they come
from
that affect the choice of parameters
where do these things come from
if they're in universal grammar this
apart in the genetic
and down a then had to involve some I'll
but not a lot could have evolved because
it's two recent
no you go back a hundred thousand years
there's far as we know nothing
a unions had the same I'll anatomy
anything that's preserved in the fossil
records about same
you know hundreds of thousand years back
so some small change must have taken
place
in the in the brain the which somehow
allowed
the all this the suddenly blossom and
pretty soon after that again and
evolutionary time like maybe
got within two thousand years which is
no time at all
a human started leaving East Africa
nowhere real come from stores and when
those
so some small group called developed
this system and then we'll spread all
over the world No
girl sensual and saying but what
involved in that short period of time
cannot have been very complex no
wouldn't expect
sears is extensive stage is like saying
your development world
limbs no million two years therefore it
would you predict is that
some other principal external to
language
maybe some the principal nature the
principle of computational efficiency or
something like that which is
not specific to language interacted with
a small mutations
which just gave rise to the the
universal grammar
well that sets forth a new goal research
to ask
to see if you can determine that the
principles themselves
a up do not have the intricacy that they
appeared to have
but are actually the result love
application of
non linguistic contracting non maybe
non-human principles
like general principles and
computational efficiency
to whatever small change took place and
the small change was probably
the capacity to the Terry out
recursive enumeration basically has a
unique using the number system for
example
to take the two things to object already
constructed in the mind that make up a
new object to them
and then keep that processor
indefinitely so you get an infinite
array of possible expressions
each with some semantic interpretation
some motive externalization the speech
sign whatever may be that would be and
the goal would be to try to show that
that was
essentially instantaneous once the small
mutation took place
given the this operation recursive
enumeration operation
with allows you to create a discrete
infinity expression structured
expressions
well that's at least feasible picture
the trick is to sure that's true
true or how close it is to true we can
you cut away at the
apparent complexity the principles
ensure that they can actually be
accounted for
in terms of a general principal so
that hold for organisms generally
perhaps and maybe even elsewhere in the
physical world
and that are instantly you're almost
instantly applied
once the original movies made into
a whatever small move it was to produce
the capacity for recursive enumeration
well that's a goal don't far from being
attained with
West 15 twenty years there's been
considerable progress towards there's a
lot of things that it seemed
twenty years ago you had to assign to
the
genetic and Delmon have no now been
ruler plausibly shown to be a possible
consequences if just
application particularly prince was a
computational efficiency
to a system which had only the
ability to constructing an infinite
hierarchy expressions and that we don't
know enough about the brain to know
that might happen but that could have
been a very small mutation
just changing something in somebody's
gino
and then spreading through the small
breeding group that so that
the in that respect that the its its
it's a goal
you know and steps have been taken
towards it but you would expect that
something like that or to be true
just from the what's known about the
media
history over the a evolution over
that Homo sapiens very recent times
without much opportunity for selection
have had any effect
maybe a small effect with not much so
that so I think
I'll it's in that lets the tendency
ok thinking at least my thinking and
some other many others a on healthy
reserve
universal grammar changed but the idea
that there is universal grammar that
exists
that can't be controversial unless you
believe in magic
no for the elementary reasons that I
mentions
