After reading the article, I still have to side with Chomsky on this one
Universal grammar may not exist (exactly) as he described but "young children use various types of thinking that may not be specific to language at all—such as the ability to classify the world into categories, and to understand the relations among things"
And what says this is not language related? It's an underlying structure that helps organize concepts. Who says thinking in shapes or concepts is not a language?
Also, it's not because some languages have not evolved recursion that it's not a defying trait. In the same way western languages are not tonal but it doesn't mean a western kid wouldn't be able to learn them
I think you've struck on something, sort-of. How's this Neo-Chomskian theory:
The structure of the Universal Grammar and its related parameters is not encoded in the brains or genetic codes of humans, but in the very nature of the universe. The Universal Grammar is universal. If you wish to describe an action, any action, you need a subject, a verb, and an object. The verb must be transitive, and the subject and object must be both nouns but distinguishable from each other. In other cases where there is no part of reality that takes the place of an object, you can have an intransitive verb, but then you cannot have an objective noun.
The parametrization of the language, such as in word order (SVO, VOS, etc.) occurs through the historical development of the language, by symmetry breaking and the requirement that language be a one-dimensional, temporal structure.
The relationship between language and the human brain, or even the human mind, is largely accidental. The mind may or may not have a "recursion" module, or slots for "subjects" and "verbs", but whether it does or does not is immaterial. The Universal Grammar is the fundamental nature of reality, not the nature of the brain. Whether the brain has such structures or not depends entirely on how well the brain represents reality, and we already know that is imperfect.
In the beginning was the WORD, and the WORD was with god, and the WORD was god.
> ability to classify the world into categories ... what says this is not language related
It is data related. The patterns exists in the data itself, young children are just uncovering the latent factors that explain the data. So, the ability of children is to learn from patterns.
> It is data related. The patterns exists in the data itself
This is a cop out. You can't get semantics (and grammar) out of "types of words" only (or you couldn't have declensions)
The important thing about recursion is not that it doesn't exist in some places, but the fact that it exists.
The language capabilities of the brain seem to be an "hardware accelerated" heuristic that allows things to be connected more easily
Given that cognitive psychologists can't even reproduce the experiments they're supposedly experts of, I'm not holding my breath from an explanation from them
Universal grammar may not exist (exactly) as he described but "young children use various types of thinking that may not be specific to language at all—such as the ability to classify the world into categories, and to understand the relations among things"
And what says this is not language related? It's an underlying structure that helps organize concepts. Who says thinking in shapes or concepts is not a language?
Also, it's not because some languages have not evolved recursion that it's not a defying trait. In the same way western languages are not tonal but it doesn't mean a western kid wouldn't be able to learn them