I have always respected Chomsky though I must say I continue to disagree with his theory of language acquisition. In this video - well worth viewing - he gives a contemporary treatment of his views. A wonderful listen! But to characterize my objection: he argues that we need some sort of innate linguistic capacity (that is computational) in order to explain why his daughter acquires language while a fish or a chimp, shown exactly the same stimulus, does not. But this capacity can be explained by size. His argument is like arguing that an ocean must have some special property that generates tides because an ocean has tides while rivers and lakes - made of the same thing and exposed to the same phenomena - do not.
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