Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Rules are symbolic , built on symbols.
On 6/9/10, c b cb31...@gmail.com wrote: Speakers proficient in a language know what expressions are acceptable in their language and what expressions are unacceptable. The key puzzle is how speakers should come to know the restrictions of their language, since expressions that violate those restrictions are not present in the input, indicated as such. This absence of negative evidence—that is, absence of evidence that an expression is part of a class of the ungrammatical sentences in one's language—is the core of the poverty of stimulus argument. For example, in English one cannot relate a question word like 'what' to a predicate within a relative clause (1): (1) *What did John meet a man who sold? ^^^ CB: Aside from the learning acquisition issues, what, (speaking of what) does the above sentence mean ? It is semantically as well as syntactically problematic. A child language learner might not use it because it doesn't express a coherent thought . Why did John meet a man who sold ? When did John meet a man who sold ? How did John meet a man who sold ? Where did John meet a man who sold ? Did John meet a man who sold ? What did John meet a man who sold for ? = Why did John... ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Rules are symbolic , built on symbols.
The issue is not coherence in the semantic sense, but syntactic intelligibility. The early phase of TG grammar did a remarkable job of explaining how certain transformations were possible and others not, in this case, in the English language. In this *sentence, what is the direct object of sold. On 06/10/2010 08:54 AM, c b wrote: On 6/9/10, c bcb31...@gmail.com wrote: Speakers proficient in a language know what expressions are acceptable in their language and what expressions are unacceptable. The key puzzle is how speakers should come to know the restrictions of their language, since expressions that violate those restrictions are not present in the input, indicated as such. This absence of negative evidence—that is, absence of evidence that an expression is part of a class of the ungrammatical sentences in one's language—is the core of the poverty of stimulus argument. For example, in English one cannot relate a question word like 'what' to a predicate within a relative clause (1): (1) *What did John meet a man who sold? ^^^ CB: Aside from the learning acquisition issues, what, (speaking of what) does the above sentence mean ? It is semantically as well as syntactically problematic. A child language learner might not use it because it doesn't express a coherent thought . Why did John meet a man who sold ? When did John meet a man who sold ? How did John meet a man who sold ? Where did John meet a man who sold ? Did John meet a man who sold ? What did John meet a man who sold for ? = Why did John... ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Rules are symbolic , built on symbols.
On 6/10/10, Ralph Dumain rdum...@autodidactproject.org wrote: The issue is not coherence in the semantic sense, but syntactic intelligibility. The early phase of TG grammar did a remarkable job of explaining how certain transformations were possible and others not, in this case, in the English language. In this *sentence, what is the direct object of sold. ^ Did John meet a man who sold what ? John met a man who sold what ? On 06/10/2010 08:54 AM, c b wrote: On 6/9/10, c bcb31...@gmail.com wrote: Speakers proficient in a language know what expressions are acceptable in their language and what expressions are unacceptable. The key puzzle is how speakers should come to know the restrictions of their language, since expressions that violate those restrictions are not present in the input, indicated as such. This absence of negative evidence—that is, absence of evidence that an expression is part of a class of the ungrammatical sentences in one's language—is the core of the poverty of stimulus argument. For example, in English one cannot relate a question word like 'what' to a predicate within a relative clause (1): (1) *What did John meet a man who sold? ^^^ CB: Aside from the learning acquisition issues, what, (speaking of what) does the above sentence mean ? It is semantically as well as syntactically problematic. A child language learner might not use it because it doesn't express a coherent thought . Why did John meet a man who sold ? When did John meet a man who sold ? How did John meet a man who sold ? Where did John meet a man who sold ? Did John meet a man who sold ? What did John meet a man who sold for ? = Why did John... ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
[Marxism-Thaxis] California
VICTORY! CALIFORNIA VOTERS REJECT TWO HIGH-PRICED CORPORATE ATTEMPTS TO HIJACK DEMOCRACY By Daniela Perdomo, AlterNet Two big corporations poured tens of millions into the airwaves for their rip-off schemes, but get no support from CA voters. http://www.alternet.org/story/147158/victory%21_california_voters_reject_two_high-priced_corporate_attempts_to_hijack_democracy ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
[Marxism-Thaxis] Rightwing pundit: Helen Thomas voices world's view on Israel
Nolan Finley, Detroit's house rightwinger, thinks most of the world thinks Israel doesn't have a right to exist. He criticizes most of the world, but it's amazing that he thinks and says that most of the world doesn't think Israel has a right to exist. I don't know if that's true. I don't know if most of the people in the world have an opinion on that issue. Finley might be a bit paranoid. CB http://detnews.com/article/20100610/OPINION03/6100356/Helen-Thomas-voices-world-s-view-on-Israel Last Updated: June 10. 2010 1:00AM Nolan Finley Helen Thomas voices world's view on Israel It's ironic -- hypocritical? -- that veteran journalist Helen Thomas is drawing such harsh and universal criticism for saying that Israelis should get out of Palestine and go back where they came from, namely Poland, Germany and the United States. At the core of Thomas' remarks is a challenge to Israel's right to exist. That's also at the heart of the condemnation showered on Israel for its bloody confrontation with an aid flotilla trying to reach the blockaded Palestinian ports of Gaza. Israel is cutting off shipments to Gaza because the territory is controlled by the Hamas terrorists. Materials reaching the terrorists have a high likelihood of being used in attacks against Israel. There's no question, then, that Israel was acting in its own defense. Yet the universal denunciation of Israel for boarding the aid ships was immediate and shockingly hostile, and came even before the facts of the incident were established. Advertisement As clearly as Thomas' remarks, the reaction reveals how the world really feels about Israel. Challenging the right of any nation to defend itself is a de facto challenge to its right to exist. Self defense is the basic right of a sovereign nation. Denying Israel that right is a denial of its legitimacy. It happens every time Israel acts against a threat. When Israel responded to relentless rocket attacks from Hezbollah by invading Lebanon, it was condemned for a disproportionate response. When it built a security fence as a barrier between its people and Palestinian terror, it was called out for the inhumanity of separating farmers from their fields. When it moved into Gaza to sweep away terrorists who were targeting schools and homes in undisputed Israeli territory, it was asked to go home and endure its tormentors. The criticism comes from those who say they believe in Israel's right to exist, but won't give it any room to exercise that right. It's not possible, in their view, for Israel to do anything correct in response to outside attacks. The condemning chorus is growing larger and louder as the Obama administration wobbles on the Jewish state. At nearly every opportunity, the White House has expressed ambiguity on its Israel position. President Barack Obama seems to go out of his way to intentionally raise doubts about the relationship. Obama, whose roots are in the far-left peace community and liberal academia -- Israel's most dangerous enemies -- has allowed the idea to take hold that the United States is inconvenienced by Israel, perhaps even a little embarrassed, and sees the Jewish state as a burden rather than a valued ally. While the White House has not joined the jackals in tearing apart Israel for the flotilla incident, neither has it expressed unequivocally that Israel has the right in such matters to repel a possible threat. America sets the standard for supporting Israel, and establishes the boundaries for the rest of the world. When the U.S. is less than absolute in its commitment to Israel's right to defend itself, it emboldens Israel's many enemies. There's no way Turkey would have acted with such provocation in instigating the flotilla showdown had it not sensed a weakening in Washington's backing of Israel. That's the danger of America taking even a half-step away from Israel's side. Helen Thomas' words were appalling, but not isolated. She was just far more direct in saying what Israel's haters have been implying for the past three weeks. Nolan Finley is editorial page editor of The News. Reach him at nfin...@detnews.com. From The Detroit News: http://detnews.com/article/20100610/OPINION03/6100356/Helen-Thomas-voices-world-s-view-on-Israel#ixzz0qSbGcWF5 ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Rightwing pundit: Helen Thomas voices world's view on Israel
Ralph Dumain wrote: Of course this is a pack of right wing lies. Re Helen Thomas: her remarks, if she has been quoted correctly, are repellent, but one should add that there is a logical distinction between Israel's right to exist as a state, Jewish or otherwise, and the right of Jewish people to live there, regardless of their proximate or distant origins. The right of all peoples to live a viable life in the modern nation-state on par with all other citizens (or perhaps i should say denizens) is a generally recognized if not practiced principle since the end of World War II. However anybody got to be where they are (that is, in a particular nation-state), it is too late to demand they go back where they came from. (The pattern of settlements on the West Bank do not fall into this category.) Interestingly, a pioneer of this principle was L.L. Zamenhof, an Eastern European Jew and the inventor of Esperanto, who declared insistently a century ago that all citizens of any state deserve to live there on an equal and nondiscriminatory basis. ^^^ CB: True. Although as dialecticians we know that all logical and legal principles taken to an extreme turn into their opposite. This right of all citizens turns into a right of white, colonialist denizens in places like South Africa , Israel. Actually, all of the Western Hemisphere, which has been genocidally usurped by European settlers over the last five hundred years, is a monument to this contradiction. ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Rightwing pundit: Helen Thomas voices world's view on Israel
Of course this is a pack of right wing lies. Re Helen Thomas: her remarks, if she has been quoted correctly, are repellent, but one should add that there is a logical distinction between Israel's right to exist as a state, Jewish or otherwise, and the right of Jewish people to live there, regardless of their proximate or distant origins. The right of all peoples to live a viable life in the modern nation-state on par with all other citizens (or perhaps i should say denizens) is a generally recognized if not practiced principle since the end of World War II. However anybody got to be where they are (that is, in a particular nation-state), it is too late to demand they go back where they came from. I didn't find HT's remarks repellant, I found them erroneous. Most of the Jews of Israel (Jewish being defined here by the religious confession of their grandparents) don't trace their roots back to Germany. They come from C. and E. Europe, mostly Slavic language and culture countries (and indeed more and more ethnolinguistsw are arguing that the best way to make sense of Yiddish cultures of Europe is to put them in the Slavic groups). HT is most likely of Lebanese Christian descent (I'm guessing but time and time again this is the case). I'm also guessing but she was probably for years one of UPI's few personnel who could understand Arabic, and could well have been placed there by the CIA, since the CIA makes heavy use of news services and journalists to gather intelligence (which is just information they think relevant to their tasks of securing the empire). I'm sure many in the establishment have wanted her to retire a long long time ago, and they finally found their excuse to make her a pariah in the eyes of the captive media and the zombies who let the media determine their world view (or reinforce it, feeding the fantasy that this or that person is, in part, in control because he or she embraces 'conservatism'). If all the people in Israel holding more than one passport went off to one of the other countries that provided these passports/dual citizenships/dual residence, off back to the UK, UK, and what is now Russia, I would bet the current warpig national security state of Israel would collapse. Finally, I have to say I draw a far different lesson from WW II. I thought the reason we ended up accomodating so many interests and ended up saying 'this was the good fight' was to keep European settler groups from doing anymore landgrabs, with the residents of a place being killed, forced to flee or kept under conditions like a police state. It was supposed to be the war that ended colonialism or made it ethically unviable. See for example Ghandi on the matter. As the case of South Africa would prove, it took far more than WW II to end it. And there is still Palestine and there is still Ireland, among others. Yes, Israel is a fact on the ground (a nuclear armed paranoid warpig state of New New Zion, sponsored by a Christian New Zion, the US). But so is the memory of Palestine and the people who have been so wronged. CJ ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Rules are symbolic , built on symbols.
RD:The issue is not coherence in the semantic sense, but syntactic intelligibility. The issue for proponents and opponents of a formalised grammar might be: Is it use of rules that decides syntactical well-formedness? Time and time again I have seen Chomskian grammarians use their 'intuition' that this or that chunk of language is not well-formed or not possible within a given language, and yet actual language use, such as the artefacts of a corpus (now completely searchable using computers and the internet) show the exact opposite. I think more and more it's that most people have no time for a type of linguistics that doesn't want to deal with real language. CJ ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Rules are symbolic , built on symbols.
Speakers proficient in a language know what expressions are acceptable in their language and what expressions are unacceptable. The key puzzle is how speakers should come to know the restrictions of their language, since expressions that violate those restrictions are not present in the input, indicated as such. This is a chunk lifted from the piece I posted, I think. Or was it one CB posted? Anyway, speakers 'know' what is and is not acceptable, but actually what they say they know when asked to rate something consciously, meta-linguistically can contradict what they actually say and do when communicating in a language. Also, the sort of example sentences/clauses that Chomskian linguists use to have 'native speakers' rate something as acceptable are often so communicatively unmotivated and contextually insufficient, it is impossible to rate them. Also, if you take in dialects and sub-dialects and idiolects, you see what is and what is not acceptable is not necessarily in agreement under the umbrella term 'English' (or any other language--indeed, if sociolinguistics shows anything conclusively is that there are no languages like 'English' or 'German' or 'Chinese'). Finally, there is the example of pidgins, wich are used to communicate quite effectively in many situations, and yet lack something in terms of grammar as is usually defined by linguists. CJ ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
