<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; ">small note: temporal and spatial symmetry should not be casually equated. For spatial symmetry we can look back and forth from one side to another; evolution-wide, being able to find the middle of a gap automatically is very useful for getting thru narrow places with minimal bruising. Temporal symmetry, with our fast-fading auditory memories, is much less obvious, and that's the kind one would need for structures. the ability to consciously remember auditory sequences is temporally asymmetrical, for sure - what 's your telephone number backwards? And unconscious temporal processing is probably similarly limited - mirror image rules are rare indeed. We don't have that particular kind of computational ability built in.<DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"><DIV><SPAN class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </SPAN>Lise<BR><DIV><DIV>On Dec 19, 2005, at 9:22 PM, <A href="mailto:aubrey@pigeonpostbox.co.uk">aubrey@pigeonpostbox.co.uk</A> wrote:</DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Dear Brian</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">You're right in guessing that I wasn't invoking divinity. My metaphors were festive season ones. But in order to extend the idea of new parts from old to phenomena like binding, endocentricity, structure dependency, I think that the old has to be both identifiable and such as to help explain why things are the way they are. I just don't see how this can be done so as to account for the main outlines of these theories and various others. Take endocentricity and its most outward appearance with edgemost maximal projections. In human perception generally there seems to be a default expectation of symmetry. In single-family dwellings built in Britain for the last 150 years, a double-fronted layout is rare. But in a British child's picture of a house, I have yet to see the normal terraced layout with the front door on one side. The same preference for symmetry seems to be attested in metaphor - with the centre favoured over the edges.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">In both syntax and phonology, a symmetrical layout would be easy to define, with words and sentences built strictly from the middle. But whatever the number of cases where this might be appropriate, it seems to me that they are so few in number, and that the preponderance of asymmetry and directionality in headedness, Wh movement, syllable structure, and more, should be treated as highly significant.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">I make no guesses as to the likely triggering or rate of spread of linguistic change. These seem to me to be some of the most fascinating questions in linguistics. But from the extreme case of the school for the deaf in Nicaragua, where an entirely new language is said to have emerged in a single childhood, it seems to me that linguistic theory must be at least capable of accounting for change at the wildfire end of the scale rather than the glacial.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">I certainly wasn't assuming that the speed of change might provide a way of telling whether a given phenomenon was a case of new from old or speculating as to how this might be done. None of the cases are simple.<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>Obviously the argument needs to be in detail. I was allowing that there might be a number of cases of new from old, and listed some cases where this seems to me most plausible. I was suggesting only that the new from old model may not be the only one, and that some changes may have been just by the odd roll of the genetic dice - to get back to the festive season,</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Aubrey Nunes</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">On 17 Dec 2005, at 21:18, Brian MacWhinney wrote:</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV> <BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Dear Aubrey,</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>Can you provide an example of an evolutionary "new idea" that does not arise from old parts?<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>Without concrete examples of this,</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">I have no idea about how to distinguish canny marketing from crude cannibalism. <SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>Of course, intervention from a Divine Marketing Department will work, but I don't assume that you have that in mind.<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>Maybe what you have in mind is something like a "powerful idea" that arises in the usual way in one evolutionary configuration, but then spreads like wildfire because of the adaptive advantage it provides.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Of course evolutionary wildfires are usually something more like glaciers that advance at the pace of a millimeter a millenium, right?</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">--Brian MacWhinney</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">On Dec 16, 2005, at 8:51 PM, <A href="mailto:aubrey@pigeonpostbox.co.uk">aubrey@pigeonpostbox.co.uk</A> wrote:</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV> <BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Speaking as one who believes in Darwinism, and (more or less) in the restrictive Hauser, Chomsky, Fitch hypothesis, and thus not in Uriagareka's exaptation, it seems to me that indeed language improvises with cannibalised parts, association, projection, range, etc,, but roughly once in every million years the evolutionary Marketing Department comes up with a new idea. This gives us the eight or so language universals, structure dependency, endo-centricity, binding principles, etc., since the point of human divergence. The interesting questions, it seems to me, are: in what order of things did the canny marketing prevail over the crude cannibalism? And: Why?</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Aubrey Nunes</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">PhD, FRSA, MRCSLT</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Director Pigeon Post Box, Ltd.,</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">52, Bonham Road,</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">London SW2 5HG</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">0207 652 1347</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV> </BLOCKQUOTE><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV> </BLOCKQUOTE><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV> </BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><BR><DIV> <SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; 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; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><DIV>Lise Menn Office: 303-492-1609</DIV><DIV>Linguistics Dept. Fax: 303-413-0017</DIV><DIV>295 UCB Hellems 293</DIV><DIV>University of Colorado</DIV><DIV>Boulder CO 80309-0295</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Professor of Linguistics, University of Colorado, University of Hunan</DIV><DIV>Secretary, AAAS Section Z [Linguistics]</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Office Hours Fall'05: Tues 2-3:30, Thurs 11-12</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#006410"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 100, 16); ">Lise Menn's home page</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#0017FF"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="text-decoration: underline;; color: rgb(0, 23, 255); -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 23, 255); -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><A href="http://www.colorado.edu/linguistics/faculty/lmenn/">http://www.colorado.edu/linguistics/faculty/lmenn/</A></SPAN></SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#006410"><BR style="color: rgb(0, 100, 16); "></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#006410"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 100, 16); ">"Shirley Says: Living with Aphasia"</SPAN></FONT><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#006410"><BR style="color: rgb(0, 100, 16); "></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#0017FF"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="text-decoration: underline;; color: rgb(0, 23, 255); -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 23, 255); -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><A href="http://spot.colorado.edu/~menn/Shirley4.pdf">http://spot.colorado.edu/~menn/Shirley4.pdf</A></SPAN></SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#006410"><BR style="color: rgb(0, 100, 16); "></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#006410"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 100, 16); ">Japanese version of "Shirley Says"</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#0017FF"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="text-decoration: underline;; color: rgb(0, 23, 255); -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 23, 255); -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><A href="http://www.bayget.com/inpaku/kinen9.htm">http://www.bayget.com/inpaku/kinen9.htm</A></SPAN></SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#006410"><BR style="color: rgb(0, 100, 16); "></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#006410"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 100, 16); ">Academy of Aphasia</SPAN></FONT><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#006410"><BR style="color: rgb(0, 100, 16); "></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#0017FF"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="text-decoration: underline;; color: rgb(0, 23, 255); -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 23, 255); -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><A href="http://www.academyofaphasia.org">http://www.academyofaphasia.org</A>/</SPAN></SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"></SPAN> </DIV><BR></DIV></DIV></BODY></HTML>