Noam Chomsky, Fundamental Issues in Linguistics (April 2019 at MIT) - Lecture 1

This is the first lecture of a two lecture series given by Noam Chomsky (10 and 12 April 2019) at MIT.

[englishplusacademy]

A legend in the field of language. It is nice to see him giving live lecture.

[bilalmohammed]

Noam Chomsky, Fundamental Issues in Linguistics (April 2019 at MIT) - Lecture 1

- what are the fundamental computational operations that enter into constructing syntactic objects and why are these and others?
- what are we trying to achieve in the study of language?
- Galileo was awed by the question "How do finite means produce infinite means?"
-language and individuals' languages are unique to humans.
-capturing the notion in the mind that enables us to construct in our minds infinite expressions is difficult which behaviorists ignored. Unlike behaviorism, which was concerned with external structures of language, innatism was concerned with the notion of internal structure in the mind which led the study of language to be in the natural science, ie., biolinguistics is one example.

- the I-language, the basic property of language, the internal system/the finite system became the subject of study in the study of language in the 20th century.
- how the speaker of a language selects a syntactic object out of an infinite array is a total mystery.
- the acquisition of the I-language is encountered with a couple of conflicting conditions, learnability, and evolvability.
- how can we take simple operations, like Merge, to achieve genuine explanations?
-dislocation and compositionally put together yield genuine explanation.

[SpiritintheSky.]

Extremely informative and interesting, of course, but let's not forget his superb delivery in a lecture theatre. He makes it seem so easy, and so easy for his audience. Exemplary.

[czarquetzal]

A very prolific thinker and public intellectual!

[khashayarmotarjemi]

2:17 that's one of the coolest things I've ever seen.

[letssuperfuntime]

What a gem this lecture is.
Thanks for sharing.

[IMAHMS]

Clearly, to identify objects as distict things, is a motor function; it pertains to what can be done with that object. Moreover, the syntax structure of language is that of representing an action, and the area of language formation in the brain (Broca's area) is located in the frontal lobe pre-motor area which is involved in planning actions.

[doubtingthelimit]

I really struggled paying attention to what he was saying, until I set it to 1, 5 times the speed. My mind finally managed fully to focus on Chomsky‘s lecture (I have adhd), and this was great! 😊❤️

[Risingsun]

Best of the best for this guy..he makes us linguistics so damned proud

[farahali]

بحترم جداااااااا كبار السن في التعليم لا مثيل لهم
Youth, his body language is more than mental expressions and thoughts

[Josephus_vanDenElzen]

1:50 Galileo 2:08 How is it possible to express an inffinite number of ideas with a couple of dozens sounds, which in itself have nothing in common with the thoughts in our minds and allow us to understand what is not present in consicousness?

That's indeed an interesting question. But, doesn't he goes too far with 3:06 "everything we can conceive and the most diverse movements of our soul" Some experiences are auditory and visual; consider colours, one can tell a blind man everything there is to know about colours and yet when he would miraculously starts seeing for the first time his experience will be expanded.

[lateefalqasab]

Thanks for sharing this rare masterpiece.

[BrenoAguiar]

In some places on Earth, we can't even think about having classes with the God Chomsky.

[jwkelley]

What is the book he is talking about Angela Ferricis? Sorry for butchering the name.. State of the art in Neurolinguistics? time stamp 1.16:22

[melodyjang]

I hope there is transcription available. It would be my valuable possession.

[aaasthaa]

Julia falk
Jesperson- notion of structure in mind

[dundoderdumme]

49:44 What does he say? It's hard to understand. Chorine language?

[MartinHaumann]

Can someone within the field point towards the best textbooks to get into the theories, where the field is and the immediate frontier technical tasks ahead for bio-linguistics? Thank you.

[reverie]

what is the book he is referencing to at 1:14:50?

[emiliogonzalez]

That questioner is pretty confused by Noam’s use of the word neural nets but I think he doesn’t know the term refers to both biological and artificial systems. It’s just common to use it in an artificial context these days.