Fwd [crosspost from LL]: Counter to Pirahan-immediacy thesis?

[Wilson Gray]

"[I]n arguing that the Piraha are intelligent, Everett notes ..."

Everett argues that the Piraha are intelligent?! Whoa! That's heavy!
In the words of Tommy Chong, "Far out, man!"

-Wilson


On 4/19/07, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Fwd [crosspost from LL]: Counter to Pirahan-immediacy thesis?
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> >
> >LINGUIST List: Vol-18-1184. Thu Apr 19 2007. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.
> >
> >Subject: 18.1184, Disc: New:  Counter to Pirahan-immediacy thesis?
> >
> >Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2007 12:00:51
> >From: Ian Goddard < iamgoddard at yahoo.com >
> >Subject: New:  Counter to Pirahan-immediacy thesis?
> >
> >
> >
> >The recent issue of The New Yorker has a detailed and thought-provoking
> >article on Dan Everett's controversial thesis that the language of the
> >Piraha, a remote Amazonian tribe, does not use recursive embedding. [*]
> >Perhaps even more remarkable, Everett proposes that the Piraha do not
> >generalize and thus do not utilize abstract concepts. Instead they live in
> >the moment and thus speak only about immediate or specific observations.
> >However, could the following interpretation of a Pirahan statement reported
> >in the same article be a counterexample to such an immediacy thesis?
> >
> >As an example of the immediacy thesis, when a group of Piraha were shown a
> >King Kong movie, Everett made the observation about their comments:
> >''They're not generalizing about the character of giant apes. [...] They're
> >reacting only to the immediate action on the screen with direct assertions
> >about what they see.'' [page 137] However, any suggestion that such is a
> >universal trait of Pirahan speech seems contradicted by a proposition made
> >by a Pirahan at another time, which Everett translated as:
> >
> >      ''Monkeys go to the jungle.'' [page 133]
> >
> >The context of the utterance of that proposition was during a formal test
> >where the subject, a Pirahan, was to indicate in which direction an
> >animated monkey head floats on a computer screen, to the upper-left or
> >upper-right corner. Those two were the only options. But when asked in
> >which direction he anticipates the monkey head will float, the Pirahan did
> >not understand the question and answered instead: ''Monkeys go to the
> >jungle.'' [page 133] That case illustrated the difficulty of communicating
> >with the Piraha.
> >
> >But it seems clear from the described context that the Pirahan pointed to
> >referents beyond the given monkey immediately before him on the screen,
> >referring instead to the abstract set of monkeys and to a universal
> >behavior of set members. An important aspect of the context was that the
> >Pirahan's answer, 'Monkeys go to the jungle', lacked the ability to allow
> >the desired polar distinction to match a left or right distinction. Why?
> >Precisely because the statement references *all* monkeys by its implication
> >that no monkey should be found that does not go to jungle. As such, the
> >Pirahan's proposition could be further translated into first-order
> >predicate logic as:
> >
> >    Monkeys go to the jungle.
> >
> >    For all x, if x is a Monkey, then x goes to the Jungle.
> >
> >    Ax( Mx -> Jx )
> >
> >So it seems that the proposition, 'Monkeys go to the jungle', describes a
> >characteristic trait of members of the set called 'monkeys' and as such is
> >a clear example of generalizing (universal generalization) and thus of
> >conceptual abstraction. Note too that the abstraction defines a
> >second-order predicate because the set 'monkeys', being a first-order
> >predicate, is a subset of the set of entities that 'go to the jungle'. My
> >sideline hunch would be to suspect that even if the Piraha lack discrete
> >words for 'all' and 'some', they still manage to communicate such
> >distinctions. For example, by the given proposition: ''Monkeys go to the
> >jungle.''
> >
> >Now of course its likely that something has been lost in the cited
> >translation. For example, perhaps the author of the article did not
> >accurately quote Everett's interpretation, or perhaps Everett's
> >interpretation was hasty. However, it just seems clear to me in the
> >described context of its utterance the proposition ignores the given monkey
> >and points instead to (1) the set of which the given animated monkey was a
> >member and (2) a generalized trait of all set members.
> >
> >Also, in arguing that the Piraha are intelligent Everett notes that they
> >''understand the behavior of local animals and how to catch and avoid
> >them.'' (page 131) But does not such understanding necessarily entail
> >generalizing types of behaviors to abstracted sets of specific types of
> >animals? If so, then if a Pirahan sees an animal of type A, she attributes
> >to it characteristic behaviors of class-A animals -- if x is an animal and
> >is of type A, then x is ... (list class traits). Indeed, that seems to be
> >exactly what we observe in the proffered example above. If the Pirahan can
> >conceive of characteristic traits of specific sets of animals, surely they
> >are necessarily generalizing and abstracting. And if so, then it seems
> >improbable or even unimaginable that their language should fail to
> >communicate such abstracted conceptions among community members.
> >
> >That proposed counterexample to the immediacy thesis aside, the New Yorker
> >article is a great read and Everett raises many good observations with
> >exciting alternative views, and in so doing does us all a favor by
> >subjecting the popular view to skeptical inquiry. The scientific process!
> >And even if the Piraha do generalize and abstract, as I suggest above, the
> >overall picture sounds like abstraction is sufficiently rare in both
> >Pirahan words and existence that this surely points to important
> >anthropolinguistic facts to be uncovered, especially related to the
> >intimate connection between language and perception.
> >
> >~Ian Goddard
> >
> >''The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.'' Wittgenstein
> >
> >[*] Colapinto, John. ''The Interpreter.'' The New Yorker (April 16, 2007)
> >118-37.
> >http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/04/16/070416fa_fact_colapinto
> >
> >
> >Linguistic Field(s): Anthropological Linguistics
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >-----------------------------------------------------------
> >LINGUIST List: Vol-18-1184
> >
> >
>
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