Dan, List, It's nice to have you drop in to peirce-l as you occasionally have in recent years and, of course, I'm especially delighted that you find some of the discussions here useful and illuminating. Your current work sounds most interesting, so please let us know when these and, of course, any Peirce-related papers are available.
The Wikipedia entry on you https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Everett also mentions that you are working on a book, "*Peircean Linguistics: A Chapter in the History of Empiricist Thought.*" I'm reasonably certain that I am hardly the only person in this forum who will be quite interested in reading it when it's available. You wrote: DE: Peirce used the term Universal Grammar in 1865 and his version of UG (like Chomsky’s nearly a century later) had recursion. The difference is that Peirce’s recursion was semantic (interpretants of interpretants) whereas Chomsky’s is syntactic. Peirce’s recursion works better for understanding a number of modern languages, as well as language evolution. . . That is most intriguing given your views, as I very vaguely understand them, on universal grammar (such as your opposing Chomsky's asserting the universality of recursion). I haven't much read up on linguistics in recent years with one exception: A friend, colleague, and occasional contributor to the list, Michael Shapiro, also a Peircean linguist, has found Chomsky's version of UG problematic, and we've occasionally discussed it, I've read some of his papers, heard him lecture, etc. on his views. It would, obviously, be great to get a discussion going here on Peircean linguistics, your very different view of UG from Chomsky's, comparing notes with Michael, etc. Whether or not that is feasible for you at present, you might take a look at some of Michael's papers posted on the Arisbe site. See: http://www.iupui.edu/~arisbe/menu/library/aboutcsp/ABOUTCSP.HTM#Shapiro.Michael Of course, we'd be delighted to post or link to any Peirce-related papers you've written at Arisbe. Best, Gary (writing as list moderator and co-manager of Arisbe with Ben Udell) *Gary Richmond* *Philosophy and Critical Thinking* *Communication Studies* *LaGuardia College of the City University of New York* On Fri, Mar 29, 2019 at 9:15 AM Dan Everett <[email protected]> wrote: > This has been a useful discussion (not that it should end of course). > > Larry Barham (University of Liverpool, Department of Archaeology) and I > have finished a long paper (just submitted) on the evidence that lower > Paleolithic tools manufactured by Homo Erectus were simultaneously icons, > indexes, and symbols. We then argue that if that is correct they had > language (since syntax is itself a combination of icon, index, and symbol + > a varied range of computational properties). > > Peirce used the term Universal Grammar in 1865 and his version of UG (like > Chomsky’s nearly a century later) had recursion. The difference is that > Peirce’s recursion was semantic (interpretants of interpretants) whereas > Chomsky’s is syntactic. Peirce’s recursion works better for understanding a > number of modern languages, as well as language evolution (I and a > co-author point this out in a review article to appear in Language). > > Understanding the various nuances of his work is therefore vital to > grasping its contemporary significance (as readers here know) - in some > ways especially for understanding language and its evolution - and I am > grateful to this list for continuing to host such illuminating discussions. > > Dan > >
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