>
> Do I get a Nobel for my "language isn't a product of
> evolution; being good at language is a product of evolution"
> theory? ;)
as you know these are based on merit. you don't just get them. a quantitative ranking of merit is now understood, based on willingness to pay---if you have the money, then you have merit. so give an offer. (at least 1 $M because we give the money prize too.)
>
> How do animals get ASL if they don't know any vocabulary?
> Or do you just mean using gestures?
evidently. there's whole (generalized) grammars of gestures. think of dogs pissing on trees and bears scratching them. or, say, dance. if we evolve maybe in 100,000 years we'll (or you'll) even get there.
>
> --- On Thu, 7/16/09, mart <media314159 at yahoo.com>
> wrote:
>
> > From: mart <media314159 at yahoo.com>
> > Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] More on Kenneally
> > To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> > Date: Thursday, July 16, 2009, 4:30 AM
> >
> > i think actually this the state of the art view people
> are
> > coming around to---though phrased differently
> (people
> > are primed not to be blank slates). i haven't read
> > kenneally but s. kirby who apparently she discusses in
> a
> > sense does this 'just-so-theory' via agent based
> > modeling. i do think animals have 'proto'language,
> > even if they dont speak spanglish or quebecois or
> > ghettoese. i'd imagine asl actually is more
> > comprehensible to them---i even use it (or sign
> language in
> > general) with animals --they seem to get it. as
> > for grammar not everyone needs it---one big 'attack'
> on
> > chomsky which is in the litterture looked at a tribe
> in
> > amazonia who had very little math sense/aka
> > 'recursion'. they also didn't need abstract algebra
> > (beyond intuition).
> >
>
>
>
>
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>