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Also, dogs and cats, and even our close relatives, primates, don't develop a capacity to language.
by zvmaz 3y ago
Also, dogs and cats, and even our close relatives, primates, don't develop a capacity to language.
- azakai 3y agoYes, and that's one of my favorite Chomsky points. I don't remember the exact phrasing, but something like: "Language is innate in humans because in every household practically all children learn it while none of the pets do."
- littlestymaar 3y agoThey[1] do learn some of it, but a fraction so small it doesn't change the argument. [1]: at least the mamal pets, not goldfishes
- bbor 3y agoThat’s a hot take - they learn the meaning of some sounds, but I’d say that’s on a whole different order than human language. Many, many animals communicate concepts using sounds
- littlestymaar 3y agoYou shouldn't dismiss the abilities of our fellow mammals too quickly. Of course they are very far from equal to us, but there are several species of mammals that have showed non-trivial use of language, it's not too much of a stretch to imagine that all mammals have at least very basic language building blocks in their brain, even if vestigial.
- gizmo686 3y agoA similar insight: We teach children to read and write, but we don't need to teach them to listen and speak.
- williamcotton 3y agoWell how large are the neural networks in both humans and cats? And haven’t we seen empirical evidence that some astonishing emergent behavior is exhibited by large artificial neural networks?
- sdenton4 3y agoThat could be more a question of the sensorium than brain structure, though... And whales might say something similar about us, that humans have a very complex society despite being seemingly unable to learn to speak coherently.
- jjtheblunt 3y agoHow is that known? I ask since they may understand far more words than (of course) they can pronounce.