Monday 26 August 2013

Contro l'antiselezionismo in lingusitica

Another argument for non-selectionist theories is that grammar is more complicated than it needs to be to fulfil the communicative needs of a  hunter-gatherer lifestyle. As one sceptic put it, 'How does recursion help in the hunt for mastodons?' But  as Bloom and I pointed  out, complex gram­mar is anything  but a useless luxury:  "[...] It makes a difference whether that region has animals that you can eat or animals that can eat you". [Steven Pinker]

E' abbastanza umiliante per l'umanità che ancora oggi ci sia bisogno che qualcuno scriva queste cose.

No comments:

Post a Comment