<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><blockquote type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0; "></span></blockquote>Re Meeùs's question:</div><div><br><blockquote type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0; "> Is Chomsky's idea of linguistic recursion merely that (Chomsky's idea), or is it a property of language?<br></span></blockquote></div><br><div>I don't think there's a way of answering this definitively, just as there is no way of proving that any theory about nature is true. But Chomsky's account of how nested relative clauses work---by recursion---is simple (relatively), plausible, and adequate. Actually, Chomsky makes the stronger claim that recursion is a property of the human mind; he should not be surprised if it turns out that another product of human thought, tonal music, seems to exhibit recursion.</div><div><br></div><div>Wayne Slawson</div><div><br></div></body></html>