Chomskian linguistics and human uniqueness

[Joel S. Berson]

At 9/11/2010 02:56 PM, David Bowie wrote:
>From:    Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
>
>>What precisely does the dramatic metaphor "hard-wired" mean in this
>>context anyway?  It would seem to denote, logically, only a genetic capacity
>>expressed through processes within the brain, but it seems to be
>>invested with all sorts of elusive connotations.

Since neurons are connected, I suppose some might
assert that language capability is in genetically
in the wiring of those connections.  I don't believe it.


>>Or is it just another successful public-relations term that I'm
>>reading too much into?
>
>I taught a graduate seminar a couple years ago where we got heavily
>into this question, and the best we could do was to say that it means
>that there's a genetically-based ability for humans to deal with
>highly complex symbolic structures.
>
>Whether that's human-only or not
Well, we don't really have the tools
>to say one way or another. It is possible, though, that it's a scalar
>trait, with humans near one end of the scale, and past some particular
>tipping point where language as we know it becomes possible.

The trait is more likely, in mathematical terms,
a network, with various traits (aspects of
language capability) present or absent in various
animals and the most such traits (or all, if one
lets the wrong people define what the set of
traits of language capability is) present in
humans.  Scalar traits went (or should go) into
the trash with The Great Chain of Being.

Joel

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