ksagnostic

... there is an interesting program on our local PBS station now that might be running on other PBS stations at the moment...

"Journey of Man"

discussing the view that the modern human race began with a single individual 60,000 years ago. That recent a date, BTW, is news to me.

I will return with a full reply later.

RufusAtticus

In my innatist opinion, social iteraction is all the stimulus needed.

One child - no.
A group of children - yes.

Both since innatist have no problem with the fact that language is a development ability. The two camps here can be briefly summerized as follows.

1. Innatists: Language is a product of specific cognative abilities for structured communication. We are biased for language.

2. Emergentists: Language is a by-product of increased human mental capacity. We are not biased for language.

Before Chomsky, #2 was the prevailing view among linguists et al. After Chomsky, #1 is the prevailing view.

Innatness would predict that the group of children would develop language and it would follow typical language rules. Emergentness does not make such a prediction. I don't even know if emergentness would predice the creation of complex language among these children. It seems to me that emergentness relies on children simply reasoning out already existing communications. Emergentness would probably predict that if communication developed then it would be crude because they wouldn't have the stimuli to make it complex. IOW, complexity is not a biological bias but rather a cultural phenomenon.

Gurdur

How the hell did I miss this thread ?

That will teach me for getting involved in other things around here !

I will be back with a long post, maybe tomorrow.

Gurdur

Okeydokey, here are just a few thoughts of mine on this matter, a matter dear to my heart.
Disclaimer: all my literature is buried in huge piles in one room under 4,000 other books (the result of moving house), and I have no access to PSYINDEX, MEDLINE or LING at the moment, so I'm doing this all from memory.

1. It has been claimed yet again the vocal chords of humans provide a strong incentive/thingygummy/whatever.
   
   This simply, IIRC, is not the case.
   There was a study (I forget by whom), entitled Comparative Morphology Of The Chimpanzee, which showed the physical structures of the vocal apparatus in chimps do not significantly militate against some sort of reasonable phonetic range; what does militate against the chimp's chances are lack of significant fine motoric control of the area, IOW dedicated or overall cerebellum development.
   
2. Dedicated language areas in the brain are not bound forever to one hemisphere ---- Broca's area exists in both hemispheres. Just because usually one hemisphere becomes predominant for production and comprehension of language does not change the fact,
   IIRC, significant damage to Broca's area in both hemispheres will destroy any chances of production of language.
   
3. It has been claimed that there is no significant neuromorphological differences in the language areas (Broca's, Wernicke's, et al).
   Well, pardon me, but this is not a big deal; what does define dedication of tasking is the interwiring and task-assignment of areas often, rather than gross neuromorphological differences. Not every dedicated area shows up so happily and induitably as a Substantia nigra.
   
4. Grammatical communication and non-grammatical communication in humans seem to have different neurological bases; there are the communicative utterences of children in certain severe meningitis cases, or in cri du chat syndrome.
   
5. No other animal has been as yet shown to display grammar in communication
   (with the possible exception of the under-researched but interestingly verbose Carribean Reef Squid)
   ---- for the ape experiments, see Aping Language, by John Dunn
   
6. Finally, there's a bit of false dichotomy going on here; dedication of language areas can also be had under an emergist or functionalist view.

Happy Wonderer

This, although true as far as I know, is what I consider to be one of the weaker parts of the argument that grammar is unique to human languages, and therefore humans have a unique structure for processing language. It is akin to an argument from ignorance. How likely do we think we are to detect the grammar of another species? (I have a vague memory of a report from some early explorer that the 'natives' encountered didn't have a real language but merely communicated with rude grunts and moans.)

Consider the "songs" of the humpback whale. They are fairly clearly a form of communication -- but for what we do not know. It is a long distance communication, which makes it extremely slow by our standards. It is expensive, and whales seem to have a fair amount of apparatus and behavior dedicated to producing these songs. They seem a good candidate for a language that would have a grammar, but since we have no real idea what whales would care to communicate is difficult to imagine how to start. (Not that many people aren't trying...)


For a thought experiment, imagine trying to determine whether there is a syntax in the modulations of a programmer's phone lines. Even if they were sending C++ (or Java if you prefer) source code, I don't think it would be very obvious that there were syntax rules underlying the frequency modulation that you were listening to.


Odd ideas late at night...

HW

Happy Wonderer

Really? If I understand your meaning correctly, that would be a falsification of a larger idea -- the idea that all languages have a structure. Although that trivially falsifies the hypothesis that all languages share a (meta-)structure, it comes perilously close to merely falsifying the definition of a language.

In other words, if such a form of communication were found it would simply not be considered a language. And in fact, isn't that how we (or good Skinnerians at least) would describe most non-human communication? "Sit!" "Stay!" "Roll Over!"...


What am I missing?

HW

Gurdur

Incorrect.
It's an argument from complexity and necessity.
Grammar demands sequencing and relational algorithms; to then say that one needs the neurological machinery to accomplish that is only to state the obvious.
Furthermore, where functionary biological machinery exists, it gets used.
All biological machinery demands investment, and little gets a free ride.
If other animals lack grammar, then fairly obviously they're not displaying a function; it's reasonable to suppose that the machinery for that function does not exist.

If you do not, as a species, display flight, it's reasonable to assume you as a species lack functioning wings.

Researchers look at the total communicative output of a test subject, and subject it to context observation and testing for the relevant algorithms.
A colleague of mine did it for cows, who communicate by shitting in front of each other.

Most likely territorial and group marking

They're not.
Despite intensive analysis of communication by dolphins and whales, no grammar has been found.
Context-specific information (such as knowing what they want to communicate) is not necessary to rule out any possibility of the presence of grammar.
BTW, look at the SETI experiments; they do exactly the same with radio signals from space.