Syntactic Structures Revisited: Contemporary Lectures on Classic Transformational Theory by Howard Lasnik
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I used to really enjoy universal grammar.
I thought it a very meaningful activity when I was in grad school. Now, it’s a little over a decade later. I find this work insular, and pedantic. Academic. Really, functional categorization is used to overlay what words are. According to these categorizations, we then expect certain syntactic regularities to follow. This is what is universal about all humans, so Chomsky’s work goes.
This is problematic though, because there is no predictive qualities about this grammar, only the consistency of whatever rational assumptions/rules we have decided. Tests often yield a messiness that needs to be calibrated for, so new rules are made and realigned.
What is the point of finding UG? What is the point of having a perfect generative syntax? Artificial intelligence? Political alignment that we are no different from each other? Easier learning of different languages? It’s unclear. But this rationalism is an outgrowth that originates from the excesses of scientisim.
There are plenty of very intelligent people who participate in these kinds of studies. The attempt to create a rational mirror to language really only highlights how irrational we really are. The adaptation of specific contexts is what determines rational consistency. Any particular organization as a generative binding can provide this consistency. This seems to me to be very telling of the kind of spontaneous and creative creatures we are.
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