Five minutes with Noam Chomsky – “Europe is pretty much following behind US policy, no matter what that policy is”

Last week the General Assembly of the United Nations voted in favour of recognising Palestine as a non-member observer state. The EU was unable to reach a common position on the issue, with some states voting in favour and others, including Germany and the United Kingdom, abstaining. EUROPP editors Stuart A Brown and Chris Gilson asked Noam Chomsky for his views on the vote and Europe’s wider response to the Israel-Palestine crisis

The language capacity: architecture and evolution

There is substantial evidence that the human language capacity (LC) is a species-specific biological property, essentially unique to humans, invariant among human groups, and dissociated from other cognitive systems. Each language, an instantiation of LC, consists of a generative procedure that yields a discrete infinity of hierarchically structured expressions with semantic interpretations, hence a kind of “language of thought” (LOT), along with an operation of externalization (EXT) to some sensory-motor system, typically sound. There is mounting evidence that generation of LOT observes language-independent principles of computational efficiency and is based on the simplest computational operations, and that EXT is an ancillary process not entering into the core semantic properties of LOT and is the primary locus of the apparent complexity, diversity, and mutability of language. These conclusions are not surprising, since the internal system is acquired virtually without evidence in fundamental respects, and EXT relates it to sensory-motor systems that are unrelated to it. Even such properties as the linear order of words appear to be reflexes of the sensory motor system, not available to generation of LOT. The limited evidence from the evolutionary record lends support to these conclusions, suggesting that LC emerged with Homo sapiens or not long after, and has not evolved since human groups dispersed

An interview on linguistic variation with Noam Chomsky

This is an interview to Noam Chomsky (MIT) on linguistic variation

Construcciones mentales y realidad social

Chomsky distinguishes two cognitive and social basic problems, which he calls Plato’ s enigma and Orwell’ s enigma. Both are significant in theoretical and thinking debates of our century, but also have a large root in history and human reflection. Through them we can review problems and circumstances essential to consider in future years.Chomsky distingue dos problemas cognitivos y sociales basicos a los que denomina enigma de Platon y enigma de Orwell. Ambos caracterizan el debate teorico y del pensamiento de nuestro siglo, pero tienen ademas una larga raigambre en la historia y en el pensamiento humanos. A traves de ellos podemos revisar problemas y circunstancias que son claves a la hora de afrontar el siglo que viene

Choices and Prospects

Excerpt In examining the attacks on the U.S. on September 11, we must first identity the perpetrators of the crimes. It is generally assumed, plausibly, that their origin is the Middle East region, and that the attacks probably trace back to the Osama Bin Laden network, a widespread and complex organization, doubtless inspired by Bin Laden but not necessarily acting under his control. Let us assume that this is true. A sensible person would try to ascertain Bin Laden’s views, and the sentiments of the large reservoir of supporters of much of what he says throughout the region. About all of this, we have a great deal of information

Mechanical Translation

Contains reports on one research project.National Science FoundationEastman Kodak Company (Grant

Mechanical Translation

Contain a report on a research project.National Science Foundatio