David Adger

Linguists David Adger and John Goldsmith discuss generativism, its claims, and its relationship to nativism and functionalism. They delve into personal experiences with the generativism vs. functionalism debate and explore Noam Chomsky's focus on syntax and mind. The podcast also touches on derogatory words, linguistic areas, and the evolving concept of generativism. Topics like booster shots and mix and match vaccines are also discussed, along with ways for listeners to engage with the podcast.

David Adger, Professor of Linguistics at Queen Mary University of London and Head of the School of Languages, Linguistics and Film, explores the foundational ideas in the cognitive science of language in his book. Topics discussed include the nature of language and its creative capacity, variations in marking relative clauses, the use of emojis in language, the hierarchy of human language, speech errors and child language acquisition, distinct neural processing of natural and unnatural linguistic rules, the social justice dimension in linguistics, and avoiding linguistic prescriptivism.