Well not really, but this observation, originally due to Chomsky, is quite apropos to the "does this amount to plagiarism" debate going on in Jerad's comments section.
...almost every sentence anybody voices is an original combination of words, never previously uttered, therefore a language cannot consist only of word combinations learned through repetition and conditioning; the brain must contain innate means of creating endless amounts of grammatical sentences from a limited vocabulary. This is precisely what Chomsky (1965) argues with his proposition of a Universal Grammar (UG)."
The idea that a close match like the one under consideration might be a coincidence is, from a linguistic sciences stand-point, extremely implausible.
The idea that the repeated language happened by chance is further undermined by the fact that right before borrowing Harris' words, Harper's speech mentions Harris.
ReplyDeleteWhat happened to scandal? Now it's a plagiarism "debate"?
ReplyDeleteCritics are scraping the bottom of the barrel on this one. The few coincidences may be due to the same speech writer too.
Quick question; when does the Liberal campaign start?