Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id RAA10163 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Fri, 9 Nov 2001 17:10:23 GMT Message-ID: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D3102A6D0FD@inchna.stir.ac.uk> From: Vincent Campbell <v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk> To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Subject: RE: Fwd: Instinctive speech diminishes us not Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2001 16:58:59 -0000 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) Content-Type: text/plain X-Filter-Info: UoS MailScan 0.1 [D 1] Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Physiologically, I thought it was basically all down to the positioning and
size of the voicebox, which is pretty clear, (although wasn't there
something recently about deer who have very similar throat structures to
us?) but the intellectual differences needed for complex communication are
more difficult to work out- after all we've no genetic information available
from our immediate ancestors that might indicate the areas of change to
focus on, only those areas of difference between us and apes.
<In other words, if language is truly cultural, as a lot of
hard-nosed
> should-not-be-academic romantics like us to believe, then there really
> should not be many physiological differences between humans and primates.>
>
Who could you be referring to here? :-)
I think there's a difference between saying language capability is
genetic, and the form of language is genetic, e.g. the grammar etc., which
is what Chomksy argued. I thought that studies of self-invented sign
language amongst the poor deaf kids of (.... I don't recall where it was),
showed that their untaught sign languages consisted of grammatical
structures similar to many languages, had more or less shown Chomsky was
right? Ot at least was thought to by some.
PS, to our American friends- can we have our Prime Minister back
please? We know he's quite liked over there, but it's all gone to hell over
here whilst he's been playing diplomacy (e.g. the Scottish First Minster
resigning over a financial scandal; Northern Ireland Assembly members
shoving each other in an extremely feeble way.
Vincent
-- The University of Stirling is a university established in Scotland by charter at Stirling, FK9 4LA. Privileged/Confidential Information may be contained in this message. If you are not the addressee indicated in this message (or responsible for delivery of the message to such person), you may not disclose, copy or deliver this message to anyone and any action taken or omitted to be taken in reliance on it, is prohibited and may be unlawful. In such case, you should destroy this message and kindly notify the sender by reply email. Please advise immediately if you or your employer do not consent to Internet email for messages of this kind. Opinions, conclusions and other information in this message that do not relate to the official business of the University of Stirling shall be understood as neither given nor endorsed by it.=============================================================== This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing) see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Nov 09 2001 - 17:16:03 GMT