language Quotes

Language is a weapon of politicians, but language is a weapon in much of human affairs.

It's perfectly obvious that there is some genetic factor that distinguishes humans from other animals and that it is language-specific. The theory of that genetic component, whatever it turns out to be, is what is called universal grammar.

Language is one component of the human cognitive capacity which happens to be fairly amenable to enquiry. So we know a good deal about that.

Human language appears to be a unique phenomenon, without significant analogue in the animal world.

As Bromberger observed, rules are understood to be elements of the computational systems that determine the sound and meaning of the infinite array of expressions of a language; the information so derived is accessed by other systems in language use.

I don't know if I officially proofread my father's book, but I read it. I did get some conception of grammar in general from that.

If a child from an Amazonian hunter-gatherer tribe comes to Boston, is raised in Boston, that child will be indistinguishable in language capacities from my children growing up here, and vice versa.

I'm about as monolingual as you come, but nevertheless, I have a variety of different languages at my command, different styles, different ways of talking, which do involve different parameter settings.

I have trouble reading modern Hebrew. In the 1950s, I could read anything. I don't know how much experience you've had with contemporary Hebrew. It's quite difficult.

Language is a process of free creation; its laws and principles are fixed, but the manner in which the principles of generation are used is free and infinitely varied. Even the interpretation and use of words involves a process of free creation.