18.1287, Disc: Discussion on Piraha

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LINGUIST List: Vol-18-1287. Fri Apr 27 2007. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 18.1287, Disc: Discussion on Piraha

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1)
Date: 26-Apr-2007
From: Ian Goddard < iamgoddard at yahoo.com >
Subject: Discussion on Piraha

 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2007 16:05:58
From: Ian Goddard < iamgoddard at yahoo.com >
Subject: Discussion on Piraha 
 


Thanks for your reply Dan. [1] You're right that the proposition 'Monkeys go 
the jungle' is a generic. [2] However, my question [3] still stands since 
generics also abstract and generalize beyond immediate experience. [4] 
Abstraction, of course, classifies things with unique properties into sets of 
similar things. [5] Take your example generic 'Fish is good to eat'. Its noun 
phrase 'Fish' is a set abstracted by a speaker from all observed things such 
that 

 Fish = { x | Fish(x) } , which is an abstraction. 

So by simply referring to the set of monkeys (even if given a non-plural 
name as you suggest), the Pirahan in the previously described context [3] 
abstracted out of his set of memorized observations only those things that 
are monkeys. Then he abstracted another property ('goes to the jungle') 
and applied it to the NP set of monkeys over which the generic 'Monkeys go 
the jungle' generalizes. Neither the abstracted set of monkeys nor the 
property 'goes to the jungle' were immediately before the Pirahan, yet he 
pointed to both. 

Given that abstraction and generalization have been observed in primates 
and even in pigeons, [6] it seems unlikely that such cognitive ability would 
be lacking in the Piraha. While your research suggests to me that at most 
Pirahan abstraction may be impoverished, how is stating 'Monkeys go to the 
jungle' when faced with a mere animated monkey head not an example of 
abstraction and of generalization about the character of monkeys beyond 
immediate experience? 

~Ian Goddard
 
''The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.'' - Wittgenstein 

______________________________________________________________
[1] http://linguistlist.org/issues/18/18-1252.html

[2] Asher, N., & Morreau, M. (1995) 'What some generic statements mean'. In 
Carlson, G., & Pelletier, F.J. (Eds.) 'The Generic Book'. Chicago: CUP. Pages 
300-38.  

Using Asher and Morreau's interpretation of generics, the generic in 
question 'Monkeys go the jungle' could be expressed as the universally 
quantified statement:

  Ax( ( Monkey(x) & ~Abnormal(x) ) -> GoesToTheJungle(x) )

As with generics, but unlike my translation in [3], that would hold true even 
against a few abnormal cases.

[3] http://linguistlist.org/issues/18/18-1184.html

[4] Ibid, see page 4 which notes that generics *abstract* away from 
particulars.

[5] Daintith, J., & Nelson, R.D. (1989) 'The Penguin Dictionary of 
Mathematics'. London: Penguin Books. 

[6] Fabre-Thorpe, M. (2003) 'Visual categorization: accessing abstraction in 
non-human primates'.  Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 358(1435):1215-
23.
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/picrender.fcgi?
artid=1693223&blobtype=pdf 


Linguistic Field(s): Anthropological Linguistics





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