[Linganth] Re: [ANTHRO-L] Is "motherese" universal?

[Harriet J. Ottenheimer]

What fun to see all of this on a new year's eve.  Of course the topic is
way to deep for quick responses, and there is so much to contribute that
it's difficult to know where to begin.

It's important to note, at the very least however, that Falk seems only
to be thinking of spoken language, and to be completely ignoring Signed
language, which is, according to all evidence, just as much Language as
is any spoken variety, and which is quite likely to have been possible
even earlier than spoken language.  And surely Falk can't be defining
language as just grunting!

It's also worth noting the proposed scenarios are somewhat flawed.  If
you are trying not to attract the attention of predators then you really
shouldn't be making noises in an attempt to keep your baby from making
noises.  And anyone who thinks you have to put your baby down in order
to pick something up probably doesn't have much experience carrying
babies around.

The whole topic of how language is even possible and when it might have
become possible is endlessly fascinating.  I've put a long chapter on it
in my (forthcoming) linganth textbook.

Cheers, all, and best new year's wishes.

Harriet Ottenheimer

Ronald Kephart wrote:

> At 3:35 PM -0500 12/31/04, samuels at anthro.umass.edu wrote:
>
>> ...questions of whether  bipdalism, and the morphological results of
>> selection for  bipedalism, were necessary precursors to the evolution
>> of language is a much  more important question in paleoanthropology
>> than it is in linguistic  anthropology. What can we contribute to
>> that dialogue?
>
>
> I can't type a response that does this question justice right now, but
> I will say that I think we have extremely important contributions to
> make. Any discussion of what the precursors of Language are has to be
> informed by knowledge of what Language is-- what is required for
> something to be a human language. That's where we come in, seems to me.
>
> Ron
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