Hold on. I'm not biased here. I already admitted my knowledge is outdated. I am actively welcoming new information. I am not arguing.
No the elegance of the theory does not matter. The truth of the theory does. I'm saying does the universal grammar you describe, is it actually universal? Amongst all the languages in the world, do they all share this other grammar you describe? If not then the theory is incorrect. It doesn't matter how elegant the theory is.
I brought this up specifically because your reasoning wasn't "scientific" it was more along the lines of logical elegance.
>Chomsky has held on so long because it did pretty well and he became very famous, but over time it has needed larger and larger patches to cover its flaws, so other explanations are gaining traction once again.
See this makes sense and is basically the answer to the question I am asking. So you're basically saying that there were flaws? As in he had to make up new rules constantly because the science was contradicting his theory. Am I correct in this characterization?
Ah, gotcha. Yeah, I didn’t really get what you were trying to say.
I’m not an expert, but if I recall I think the big flaw was insistence on determinism.
And to my knowledge operator grammar is universal to the degree there isn’t a counter example in the dozen of languages he explored and hundreds he had others help him with. But to my knowledge the only language he fully mapped was English.
No the elegance of the theory does not matter. The truth of the theory does. I'm saying does the universal grammar you describe, is it actually universal? Amongst all the languages in the world, do they all share this other grammar you describe? If not then the theory is incorrect. It doesn't matter how elegant the theory is.
I brought this up specifically because your reasoning wasn't "scientific" it was more along the lines of logical elegance.
>Chomsky has held on so long because it did pretty well and he became very famous, but over time it has needed larger and larger patches to cover its flaws, so other explanations are gaining traction once again.
See this makes sense and is basically the answer to the question I am asking. So you're basically saying that there were flaws? As in he had to make up new rules constantly because the science was contradicting his theory. Am I correct in this characterization?