Chomsky

[A. Katz]

Keith,

I agree with you that it is crucial that we understand whether the 
capacity for language is shared across species.

I don't agree that proof that a child is aware of the meaning of what he 
is saying is held to an equal standard as proof for a non-human.

If you ask a child in a controlled setting which of several objects on the 
table is blue, and the child picks the blue object, the researcher writing 
up the experiment does not have to go into a big long discussion about how 
the child's understanding of "blue", or the syntax of the entire question, 
is not proof that the child has acquired human language.

    --Aya



On Thu, 28 Oct 2010, Keith Johnson wrote:

> Aya, discussing the problem of demonstrating that birds can talk, says:
>
> "If humans had to go through this to prove their children can really talk, 
> they wouldn't fare much better."
>
> I think that this is a false statement, as evidenced by the years of research 
> reported in journals like the "Journal of Child Language". Children are 
> studied in controlled settings, and behave differently than nonhuman 
> creatures do. My point is that the linguistic accomplishments of nonhuman 
> species are quite different from those of humans.  This seems to be an 
> observation that we should be able to explain.
>
> Barbara King argues that there are more interesting questions that whether 
> nonhuman creatures have "language" or not.  But, I would say that if we are 
> seeking to understand the organic basis of this human capacity we call 
> language, then it is crucial that we understand whether the capacity for 
> language is shared across species.
>
>
> Keith Johnson
> Professor of Linguistics
> University of California
> keithjohnson at berkeley.edu
>
>
>