Rob, (01)
> I was thinking of Pinker. I know him mostly for his book
> "The Language Instinct". (02)
Pinker and Jackendoff are both in the Chomskyan tradition,
and they both believe in the priority of syntax. But they
have their own specialized versions. (03)
> I disagree with the idea that there are cognitive primitives
> which explain language structure. (04)
Before you disagree with me, please note that I did not use the
word 'primitives'. Following is exactly what I did say: (05)
> One of the students was trying to develop an ontology of spatial
> relations for representing structures in civil engineering.
> For her term paper, I recommended Talmy's papers on representing
> spatial relations in multiple languages. (06)
Instead of the word 'primitive', I would use a word like 'pattern'
or 'schema', which is used to recognize sensory configurations and
to build mental models. But I believe that any such pattern could
be reanalyzed at a lower level or be replaced by a different pattern
that might be more useful. Therefore, it wouldn't really be a
'primitive' in the sense of a fixed and frozen, unanalyzable unit. (07)
> Interesting to hear you were right in there at the "Language Wars".
> I enjoyed reading some essays by Frank Newmeyer on that period. (08)
Since I am basically a mathematician, I was never in the linguistic
"in group". However, I did attend the LSA (Linguistic Society of
America) Summer Institute in 1969. One memorable event was an
evening talk by George Lakoff in a large auditorium. During the
question period, Ray Jackendoff began asking repeated questions,
and it degenerated into a shouting match with Ray running down
the aisle. (09)
I don't remember anything about the subject matter or the points
they were arguing about, but the entertainment was thoroughly
enjoyed by all. (010)
John (011)
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