“Despite these shortcomings, the insights into the organization of grammar that were achieved in Cartesian linguistics remain quite impressive, and a careful study of this work can hardly fail to prove rewarding to a linguist who approaches it without prejudice or preconceptions as to the a priori limitations on permitted linguistic investigation.”

— Noam Chomsky

"Description and explanation in linguistics"
Quotes 2000s, 2007-09, (3rd ed., 2009)

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Noam Chomsky 334

american linguist, philosopher and activist 1928

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“Cartesian linguistics was not concerned simply with descriptive grammar, in this sense, but rather with “grammaire générale,” that is, with the universal principles of language structure.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

"Description and explanation in linguistics"
Quotes 2000s, 2007-09, (3rd ed., 2009)

“The aim of linguistics is to go beyond the study of individual languages to determine what the universal properties of language are, and to establish a ‘universal grammar’ that would account for the range of linguistic variation that is humanly possible.”

David Crystal (1941) British linguist and writer

Source: The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language, 1987, p. 84

“Modern linguistics has also failed to deal with the Cartesian observations regarding human language in any serious way.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

"Creative aspect of language use"
Quotes 2000s, 2007-09, (3rd ed., 2009)

“Prescriptive grammar has spread linguistic insecurity like a plague among English speakers for centuries, numbs us to the aesthetic richness of non-standard speech, and distracts us from attending to genuine issues of linguistic style in writing.”

John McWhorter (1965) American linguist and political commentator

Source: Word on the Street: Debunking the Myth of "Pure" Standard English

“The central doctrine of Cartesian linguistics is that the general features of grammatical structure are common to all languages and reflect certain fundamental properties of the mind.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

"Acquisition and use of language"
Quotes 2000s, 2007-09, (3rd ed., 2009)

“Would you trust the linguistic intuitions of someone who has been studying Latin or Greek for three days?”

Larry Wall (1954) American computer programmer and author, creator of Perl

[199809230518.WAA19312@wall.org, 1998]
Usenet postings, 1998

“Who wants to be a linguist must apply consistently linguistic criteria, not tinkering to comply with policy needs, creating the illusion that one stands still in the field of science.”

Snježana Kordić (1964) Croatian linguist

Qui veut être un linguiste conséquent doit appliquer de manière conséquente les critères linguistiques, et non les bricoler pour les conformer aux besoins de la politique, créant l’illusion qu’on se place encore sur le terrain de la science.
[Kordić, Snježana, w:Snježana Kordić, Snježana Kordić, Le serbo-croate aujourd’hui: entre aspirations politiques et faits linguistiques, Revue des études slaves, 75, 1, 40, 2004, http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/slave_0080-2557_2004_num_75_1_6860, 0080-2557] (in French)

“Many disasters can be traced to our linguistic shortcomings. Millions of money and multitudes of men have been sacrificed in order to save the prestige of a mistake in translation committed "by authority."”

Gottlieb Wilhelm Leitner (1840–1899) British orientalist

Writings of Dr. Leitner, Chapter: Oriental Translations of English Texts, p. 151

“There is always the danger that the use of traditional grammatical terms with reference to a wide variety of languages may be taken to imply a secret belief in universal grammar. Every analysis of a particular ‘language’ must of necessity determine the values of the ad hoc categories to which traditional names are given. What is here being sketched is a general linguistic theory applicable to particular linguistic descriptions, not a theory of universals for general linguistic description.”

John Rupert Firth (1890–1960) English linguist

Source: "A synopsis of linguistic theory 1930-1955." 1957, p. 21; as cited in: Olivares, Beatriz Enriqueta Quiroz. The interpersonal and experiential grammar of Chilean Spanish: Towards a principled Systemic-Functional description based on axial argumentation. Diss. University of Sydney, 2013.

“This book is therefore consecrated to the deeper and fuller study of that linguistic world in which the Hebrew Bible is set.”

James Barr (1924–2006) British bible scholar

Comparative Philology and the Text of the Old Testament, p. 304

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