08-11-2009, 07:08 PM
Paul Rigby Wrote:Machine translation for intelligence purposes. This why the Air Force etc funded him.
Roy Lisker, “Is Language a ‘Language’ Language? On the Analytic Systems of Noam Chomsky and Heinrich Schenker,” Steamshovel Press, #5, (Summer 1992), p.71:
Quote:The celebrated radical activist Noam Chomsky initially obtained his research monies (and for all I know still does) from the US Army Signal Corps, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, and the Office of Naval Research. These enormous humanitarian foundations were interested in uncovering grammatical flaws applicable to all languages because this might save time and effort in the design of computer software for language translation. That might help them to know what our enemies were up to so we could murder them first.
Not as romantic or uplifting as Jan's generous interpretation of Chomsky's motivation, I concede, but far more germane, I can't help thinking.