Facts: I can write sentences that no one has ever spoken before. The rest of you will have opinions whether they are allowed in English. Those opinions will tend to agree.
Conclusion: Our knowledge of English is not purely derived from the sentences we've heard. We must have had some model of a language in common when we started, and we fit the parameters to what we heard as children.
I find that more convincing than anything in the linked article.
Our knowledge of English is not purely derived from the sentences we've heard.
And doubly so if you consider that it isn't just a sentence we've heard, but a sentence about a real noun and a real verb that exists in space (at least initially). If I pick up a ball and say "ball" consistently, bam, you now have some kind of tagged input to work with.
We must have had some model of a language in common
when we started, and we fit the parameters to what we
heard as children.
Now, Chomsky has probably addressed these things, but to a layman, the typical justifications seem a little weak.
The controversial question is how people learn grammar, not vocabulary.
Even taken the first sentence as given, why does that imply a UG?
That model is what Chomsky meant by "universal grammar". Or so I understand - I'm not an expert.
These agreeing opinions could easily be due to a common cultural heritage and a history of reinforcement. People get reinforced for speaking in a way that is understood (and seen as correct) by others and so they speak that way. It benefits them to conform. Since everyone who speaks English shares a cultural language heritage, there is obviously a shared history of reinforcement. The shared history of reinforcement leads to widespread agreement about rules, and yet there are still plenty of examples of English dialects that violate rules of other dialects.
For instance, Ebonics vs. American English. Both are valid dialects with different rules. Both are English. Are you claiming that Ebonics speakers have a different generative mechanism than American English speakers? Obviously Ebonics has evolved __from__ American English, into something new.
Creative, meaningful responding exists outside of language and the evidence is overwhelming that this creativity is due to reinforcement history rather than some innate quality of the brain.
Anyway I don't think your facts lead to your conclusion at all.
You're not addressing the crucial point. The suprise isn't that people can invent new sentences. It's how well they can tell if other speakers will regard those sentences as valid English (or valid Ebonics). People can evaluate sentences, and forms of sentences, that have never been spoken. They could not have learned that by feedback, and linguists stuggle to state the precise rules by which they do it.
Why not? I'm not saying that grammar doesn't exist, I'm asking why it needs to be innate?
The existence of grammar rules is what allows us to determine if a sentence is grammatically correct. These rules could be learned through experience. Why do they need to be innate?
I believe you don't understand Chomsky's argument. I'm not a die hard behaviourist I just know the behaviourist position well enough to know that your particular formulation of the "language is special" theory is easily refuted.
That's not obvious at all. "Ebonics" (or AAVE -- the grammar, as opposed to transient slang) has much in common with Hiberno-Englishes found elsewhere. As a sometime speaker of Newfanese, I find the tense constructions of AAVE very familiar and predictable.
I can identify that certain plants are trees, or certain animals are dogs, even trees or dog breeds I've never encountered before. Most people would agree with my identification.
People from a similar cultural background to me will generally agree with me as to whether a completely novel piece of music is in tune and rhythmic (i.e. "grammatical", not necessarily "good"). Music from some traditions often sounds discordant (i.e. "ungrammatical") to me, due to the different scales used, yet I am sure that they must be considered grammatical by those who are familiar with such music.