🚀 go-pugleaf

"Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@verizon.net> wrote in message 
news:1188931581.502395.126760@22g2000hsm.googlegroups.com...
> On Sep 4, 1:48 pm, "Glen M. Sizemore" <gmsizemo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote in 
>> messagenews:1188908467.409393.89540@57g2000hsv.googlegroups.com...
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> > On Sep 4, 7:38 am, "Glen M. Sizemore" <gmsizemo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> >> "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote in
>> >> messagenews:1188872493.332157.31480@19g2000hsx.googlegroups.com...
>> >> > On Sep 3, 9:17 pm, Doug Morse <mo...@edoug.org> wrote:
>>
>> >> >> >  The notion of "concept" is generally invoked when the stimuli
>> >> >> > controlling
>> >> >> >  behavior
>>
>> >> > Maybe the single most important contribution of Noam Chomsky to
>> >> > linguistics happened in 1959 and had little or nothing to do with 
>> >> > the
>> >> > "transformational-generative grammar" he was just beginning to
>> >> > develop. He showed that behaviorism -- specifically, Skinner's 
>> >> > *Verbal
>> >> > Behavior* -- was unable to explain anything about human language.
>> >> > Language is _not_ an example of stimulus and response.
>>
>> >> Chomsky showed nothing of the sort, and Skinner's is not a
>> >> "stimulus-response" position. Skinner's book remains cogent but only
>> >> behaviorists read it since Chomsky's "review." BTW, Chomsky never read
>> >> the
>> >> book - ask Searle.
>>
>> > Yeah, Searle is a reliable witness to _anything_ regarding Chomsky.
>>
>> Even if you think that Searle was lying, it is painfully obvious to 
>> anyone
>> that has read both VB and Chomsky's "review" that Chomsky was criticizing
>> his vision of what some kinds of behaviorism suggested, not what Skinner
>> wrote. Perhaps you would be interested in: MacQuorcodale, Kenneth. A 
>> reply
>> to Chomsky's Review of Skinner's Verbal Behavior, but my guess is that 
>> you
>> aren't interested in what behaviorists actually say. It is too easy and
>> popular to simply misrepresent it. In any event, the paper can be 
>> accessed
>> through the JEAB website. Just google "jeab."
>
> What's JEAB? What's the actual reference? When was it written?
>
> Some years ago, I copyedited a number of volumes for Academic Press in
> the series Psychology of Learning and Motivation (I think it was --
> they're the only publisher that ever didn't give me a copy of the
> books I edited for them), which included several behaviorist
> treatises, and in every case what little they had to say about
> language was quite absurd.
>
>> > Name some contributions of behaviorist psychology to the study and
>> > understanding of language?
>>
>> Well, you can do your own leg work, but like I said, I'm guessing that 
>> you
>> are more interested in the simplistic misrepresentations that abound. One
>> thing is clear, though, when there are special populations that do not
>> "automatically acquire language," it is applied behavior analysts that 
>> are
>> called in to establish whatever functional repertoire is possible.
>
> Something other than language, evidently.
>
>> Further,
>> I know of no finding that contradicts Skinner's analysis -certainly 
>> nothing
>> you could come up with. Some would be orthogonal to it (behavior analysis 
>> is
>> not about "brain stuff").
>
> Well, language _is_ "brain stuff," so "behavior analysis" shouldn't
> have anything to say about it at all.\\


Actually, this is clearly the most absurd thing you have said. It is quite 
obvious that speech (and signing , writing etc.) is behavior.


>
>> Finally, one might ask what proportion of the stuff said to contribute to
>> the "understanding of language" is actually junk? I'm sure we would 
>> differ
>> in our ideas in this regard. There is no question that what is perceived 
>> to
>> be behavioristic is unpopular but this is largely due, it seems to me, to
>> its widespread misrepresentation, and the fact that animism has never 
>> truly
>> died out.
>
> I don't know what you might mean by "stuff said to contribute to the
> 'understanding of language'."
>