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  • From: "JAMES CHRISTIAN READ" <JCR128 AT student.anglia.ac.uk>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [b-hebrew] Colors and language
  • Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2007 11:05:21 +0100

KWR: I am no fan of Chomsky, but my main point of contact with him has been
outside of linguistics, where he has at times made a fool of himself.

But then I tend to be suspicious of any study that becomes overly
theoretical, and I wonder if Chomsky has become overly theoretical. I
prefer field studies over theoretical constructs.


JCR: I haven't met the man myself and so can only
comment on the scientific validity of some of his
claims. His claims that we have a dedicated piece
of language acquiring hardware have strong biological
reinforcements which are adequately summarised by
a dedicated chapter in Stephen Pinker's 'The Language
Instinct'. To cut a long story short there are cases
of brain damaged patients in specific areas of the
brain and such damage results in consistent and
specific linguistic inhibitions. Of particular interest
is the story of a man who suffered temporary aphasia
due to a stroke. On recovery, he recounted how he
understood everything fine (parsing functional) and
that he was thinking clearly (able to generate
good conceptual arguments) and that he was aware that
he uttering complete gibberish (problem with the
language generation module) but had no control over
this.

Where I disagree with Chomsky is his idea that we have
a hardcoded universal grammar that is manipulated by
switches. The only thing we have hard coded is our
inductional learning algorithm which works by making
generalisations from concrete examples. The universal
factor is, then, our learning algorithm and not the
grammar. The grammar is merely the product of the
algorithm.

The other part we have that is universal is our
cognitive system which is the basis of our
understanding. The underlying, non verbal language of
thought is universal but its range may be influenced
by culture. However, this does not affect our ability
to understand. While we, in the UK, may have a
completely different cognitive understanding of the
word bread to that understood in France, this does not
affect our cognitive ability to see an example of
French bread and reach a similar cognitive
understanding of their version of bread.

In summary, the true universals are:

i) Our common learning algorithm (grammar is merely a
byproduct of this)
ii) Our ability to reach cognitive understanding of
objects.

KWR: Is it certain that the language does not exhibit recursion, or is it
that recursion is indicated by clues that Everette has missed? After
all, in their appreciation of Hollywood movies, the people seem to
understand the concept of recursion. Further, Everette implied that
his ex, Keren, might have a better grasp of the language than he,
meaning that if she were a publishing theoretical linguist, she might
be able to contradict some of his claims because she caught clues that
he missed?

JCR: Yeah! I have had similar experiences. One comical
experience I have had is in my early days of learning
Ukrainian (last Summer). I wanted to talk about 'going
in' and 'going out'. I used the only tools I had
available to me at the time:

i) The verb 'to go' - 'ite'
ii) The concept 'inside' - 'seredenya'

Combining the two, I said something like 'go inside'.
What they understood was 'walk around inside the house'.
My natural conclusion at the time was something like
"They don't have a way of expressing going in or going
out. How can that be? How do I invite a person to come
in? etc.". Later experiences with the language showed
me that these concepts do exist and are quite commonly
expressed, just as you would expect of any language.
They make use of suffixes 'vey' - 'out' and 'za' - 'in' .
So, in conclusion, I do share some of your skepticisms
while at the same time, in this case, do not hold
Chomsky's ideas of recursion to be as fundamental as he
suggests. As noted earlier, sentences of the type
Everett claims the Piraha do not use come relatively
late in a child's linguistic development and are far
more mentally taxing both from a parsing and from a
generation point of view that the simplistic versions
that the Piraha are accustomed to using (according to
Everett).

KWR: One thing I missed in the report about the Piraha: what are the
stories they tell in the evenings around the fire? Or are they just
silent? Did Everette ever sit in among such groups, or was he never
allowed to listen in because he is a foreigner? The report is silent
on this aspect.


JCR: I should imagine they probably tell stories about
some white plonker in funny clothes came to the village
and started trying to get them to do some farming in
case they ran out of food, followed by roars of
unanimous laughter and comments like "Don't these
whiteys know that the forest is full of fresh fruit
and everything we have ever needed?"


KR: As an amateur linguist I find the story fascinating, even though my main
interest is not in language universals. As an anthropologist I find the
jump from 'one isolated hunter-gatherer tribe does X' with language and
culture to 'this shows us what people were like in the time when we were all
hunter-gatherers' to be very worrying. The idea that the Piraha have kept
there culture virtually unchanged for decades and resisted all innovations
from outside is fascinating. The idea that their language and culture has
remained virtually unchanged for millennia and reflects what everyone's
culture was like X thousand years ago just cannot be supported by the
evidence.

JCR: Yeah! I don't anyone is making any concrete claims
that the Piraha are *definitely* what the hunter
gatherers and their languages were like. They just make
the passive observation that this is what they *may*
have been like.

Obviously, the Piraha have the same brains and the same
cognitive abilities we have and the same potential to
learn any language of any level of complexity that we
can. Any anomalies in their language are evidently due
to cultural constraints rather than cognitive
constraints.

I personally, don't believe there is such a thing as
'a primitive language'. I believe that Yhwh created
man and woman together with a language complex and
functional enough to communicate with each other and
with their creator. This however, is a statement of
faith which I will probably get in trouble for by the
moderators. Keeping this on a scientific and linguistic
level all I can say is that I have seen no
archeological or linguistic evidence that any human
language ever evolved from a less complex language of
meaningful single syllable utterances.

James Christian Read - BSc Computer Science
thesis1: concept driven machine translation using the Aleppo codex -
http://www.lamie.org/hebrew (thesis1 and resources)
thesis2: language acquisition simulation - http://www.lamie.org/lad-sim.doc
(thesis2)














































































this on a scientific and linguistic
level all I can say is that I have seen no
archeological or linguistic evidence that any human
language ever evolved from a less complex language of
meaningful single syllable utterances.

James Christian Read - BSc Computer Science
thesis1: concept driven machine translation using the Aleppo codex -
http://www.lamie.org/hebrew (thesis1 and resources)
thesis2: language acquisition simulation - http://www.lamie.org/lad-sim.doc
(thesis2)


































































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