4 ms·
Which implies the brain has more than a structural bias for language; ie language and/or knowledge is somehow passed genetically. There's some reasons to suspe
by nl 4y ago
Which implies the brain has more than a structural bias for language; ie language and/or knowledge is somehow passed genetically.
There's some reasons to suspect this is at least partially true, but to what extent is unknown and contraversial.
- marginalia_nu 4y agoIt could be argued based on the extreme difficulty we're having in teaching animals human language, even primates. We can create a semiotic system and get a chimpanzee to communicate through it, but it won't learn English no matter how hard we try.
- nl 4y agoI think that's generally accepted to be that humans have a very large language center in the brain; IE: and inductive bias towards learning language (and I think there is something about our mouth and tongue being able to make specific sounds?) It doesn't say anything about that knowledge being precoded.
- marginalia_nu 4y agoIsn't a language center by itself precoded human toward the acquisition of human language (which has co-evolved to make use of our language center)? I don't understand how it could be any other way.
- nl 4y agoExactly. But it is unclear if there is intrinsic language knowledge somehow encoded too (which is what the OP is implying: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35590091 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35590091)