Hence, a generative grammar must be a system of rules that can iterate to generate an indefinitely large number of structures. Thi...s system of rules can be analyzed into the three major components of a generative grammar: the syntactic, phonological, and semantic components.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
When we study human language, we are approaching what some might call the 'human essence,' the distinctive qualities of mind that ...are, so far as we know, unique to man and that are inseparable from any critical phase of human existence, personal or social. Hence the fascination of this study, and, no less, its frustration. The frustration arises from the coming to grips with the core problem of human language, which I take to be this: having mastered a language, one is able to understand an indefinite number of expressions that are new to one's experience, that bear no simply physical resemblance and are in no simple way analogous to the expressions that constitute one's linguistic experience; and one is able ... to produce such expressions on an appropriate occasion, despite their novelty.... The normal use of language is, in this sense, a creative activity. This creative aspect of normal language use is one fundamental factor that distinguishes human language from any known system of animal communication.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Cities are expanding at an alarming rate. Inter-tidal zones are being polluted as mangroves gives way to marina. Over-consumption ...is leading to soil erosion and desertification, which in turn cause famine and exert pressure on formerly fertile areas. We are pulling out the plugs of the system that keeps us alive. Every indicator is showing red: species diversity, water quality, weather patterns, the number of refugees.... We are unravelling nature like an old jumper.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In the end we beat them with Levi 501 jeans. Seventy-two years of Communist indoctrination and propaganda was drowned out by a thr...ee-ounce Sony Walkman. A huge totalitarian system ... has been brought to its knees because nobody wants to wear Bulgarian shoes.... Now they're lunch, and we're number one on the planet.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The system was breaking down. The one who had wandered alone past so many happenings and events began to feel, backing up along th...e primal vein that led to his center, the beginning of hiccup that would, if left to gather, explode the center to the extremities of life, the suburbs through which one makes one's way to where the country is.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
If you need a certain vitality you can only supply it yourself, or there comes a point, anyway, when no one's actions but your own... seem dramatically convincing and justifiable in the plot that the number of your days concocts.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
An ideologue may be defined as a mad intellectual. He is not interested in ideas, but--almost the exact contrary--in one idea. Whe...n he erects this idea into a system and forces the system to give birth to a way of life, confusion often results, usually to his great surprise. Two examples are Robespierre and Lenin. The intellectual is occasionally blamed for the work of the ideologue, which is like condemning the psychiatrist because he and the patient are both involved in the same thing, mental illness. The ideologue is often brilliant. Consequently some of us distrust brilliance when we should distrust the ideologue.... The ideologue is often more persuasive than the intellectual because he has a simpler line of goods to sell and never questions its value. Sometimes he achieves great success by attacking the real intellectual--Bryan is a good example.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Our system is the height of absurdity, since we treat the culprit both as a child, so as to have the right to punish him, and as a...n adult, in order to deny him consolation.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The educational system in large countries will always be utterly mediocre, for the same reason that the cooking in large kitchens ...is mediocre at best.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »