This photograph of Noam Chomsky is courtesy of John Ohala. All rights reserved.Chris Knight's 28 March openDemocracy article on the motivations behind Noam Chomsky's increasingly 'abstract' linguistic theories is a curious one, an answer to a question no one but him is asking, built on shaky presuppositions, and, in any case utterly unprovable.
Frederick Newmeyer, in his 15 April commentary, says that Knight is "completely wrong" about this. I'm a little more cautious on this front, inclined not to be so definitive as Newmeyer, and I don't imagine he has any more insight into Chomsky's motivations than the rest of us; that is, all of us who are not Chomsky. But I am with Newmeyer in finding Knight's case unconvincing.
