Chomskian linguistics and human uniqueness

[ronbutters at AOL.COM]

How is it possible ever to "have the tools" to answer such a vague question?

How is it meaningful to ask "Is this trait scalar?" when "trait" itself is only vaguely defined and "this" is no more precise than "a genetically-based ability for humans to deal with highly complex symbolic structures"?

The fact that it is possible to define these terms in such a way as to make the answers clearly "no" does not seem to me very interesting, nor does it render the generalizations useless.
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David Bowie writes:

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.

------Original Message------
From: David Bowie
Sender: ADS-L
To: ADS-L
ReplyTo: ADS-L
Subject: Re: [ADS-L] Chomskian linguistics and human uniqueness
Sent: Sep 11, 2010 2:56 PM

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.

> 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.

Very truly yours,
David Bowie

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org