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Harnad, S. (2003b) Categorical Perception . Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science . Nature Publishing Group. Macmillan. http://www.youtube.com...
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(10a. Comment Overflow) (50+)
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Psychology PSYC 538, Winter 2018: Categorization, Communication and Consciousness Time : Tuesdays 2:35-5:25 Place : STBIO S3/3 ...
Firstly, I though chapter 1 and 2 of Pinker's paper were very well done, and I appreciated him explaining evolution in a simple but comprehensive way, it gave me my most global understanding of evolution to date.
ReplyDeleteI thought that describing language as a 'decisive advantage in competition with other species that can only defend themselves against new threats in evolutionary time' was an insightful framing of the power of language.
A critique would be that I did not understand his explanations of why there is more than one language, which I thought was a great question to ask, especially considering his argument in favor of a universal language design. I thought his reversal of the perspective on this topic to one more in line with his view, "that there is a learning mechanism, which leads to the development of multiple languages" could've been very strong, but by using an example of "sequenced elements within a bounded unit" which to a person not studying linguistics means little to, it becomes hard to decide for myself if the argument is well structured, and has value.
Although for the most part I think Pinker's explanations for why language is evolved by natural selection are pretty straight forward and have a solid logic to them, evidently I can not dismiss Chomsky's explanation of language as a function of physical laws, by the token that Pinker does, when he begs the question, "is there any reason to believe that there are as of yet undiscovered theorems of physics that can account for the design of language?" Firstly, this isn't enough to dismiss Chomsky because the weakness of Pinker's argument is that he himself has used the lack of positive evidence from natural selection to explain certain aspects of language as a weak argument for Piattelli-Palmarini's belief in language as a spandrel. Thus, he can not in turn say, the lack of positive evidence is reason enough to dismiss, because this can easily be refuted in the future, when and if a theorem or mechanism is discovered. However, more importantly is the argument Chomsky makes that there isn't an autonomy of syntax in natural languages. Essentially, the idea being that we have UG, which doesn't have an evolutionary origin and thus must be innate, and its supported by the poverty of stimulus, which is due to the lack of autonomy of syntax, meaning there is a constraint on thought, and these constraints are the parameters for UG. So until there is a reasonable way of explaining UG as a function of evolution and not of constraint of thought and thus some sort of "physical laws" that we must consider, I can not agree with Pinker in dismissing Chomsky, although even the idea of language as a spandrel isn't impregnable as a concept. Furthermore, the paper brings up under the title of "the process of language evolution" key points about the genetic variation among individuals in grammatical competence and the steps going from no language at all to language as we know it, which I thought were strong arguments against N.S. that were not addressed properly in the paper.
"This argument is obviously incomplete, as it relies on the somewhat intuitive notion of "function" and "design." …each legitimate function can be related via a direct plausible causal chain to other functions and -- critically -- to the overall function of survival and reproduction."
ReplyDeleteI think the main problem here is saying that evolutionary explanations can prove causation. While evolution does yield temporal sensitivity, giving a tempting timeline of events to draw causation, it still does not explain the how and the why, only that one thing happened after another. The entirety of linguistics as a field seems to me to be a backward science, not pushing forwards to discover new things but rather grasping at explanations for age old constructs. I was also intrigued by the metaphor drawn about architectural spandrels and evolution. I completely agree with the ideas stated, that we cannot attribute what we do from what we have. Obviously, noses were meant for more than to hold up spectacles and legs were meant for more than just wearing breeches. As discussed in class, I think that evolution is too lazy to account for language and while this paper provided interesting arguments it cannot account for all the discrepancies. For example, despite the section dedicated to the function of language, evolutionary explanations still cannot separate a distal and causal role.
“no notable correlation with technological progress: the grammars of industrial societies are no more complex than the grammars of hunter gatherers”
ReplyDeleteThis sentence of course had me thinking of Chomsky’s theory of universal grammar, theorizing that we are born with this propensity for language development. More specifically, the ability to recognize, learn, understand, and reproduce complex grammatical rules with little to no formal training. I was thinking about how something like this could exist given the vast differences between languages spoken and how there does not appear to be a difference with regards to how quickly babies of one language learn versus those of another. It was helpful to have a simple reminder (clarification, actually, since I’ve never really studied languages formally) that despite the vast differences between languages they are all more or less the same level of complex with regards to grammar. That being said, it would seem the rest of the article focuses on language beyond that innate point – how we learn based on our environment to speak a specific language, rather than really exploring how something like universal grammar would actually work in our minds. For the sake of considering how to create a T2 trying to unravel the mysteries of universal grammar and whatever it is in our heads that allow for it, would be the point of interest.
If we are talking about language being like the eye in complexity and making the analogy between the two for the sake of understanding their evolution, I get a bit confused by the idea of a ‘developing’ language. For vision I can see how an eye of a species would progressively get more complex, allowing for better and better sight tailored to whatever that species needed to do to survive, but how does this apply to language? We talked about there being no protolanguages, so no languages that cannot convey just about anything it needs to. So, would the development be referring to that transition from gestural language to our now more grammatically complex languages?
ReplyDelete“There must have been a series of steps leading from no language at all to language as we now find it, each step small enough to have been produced by a random mutation or recombination, and each intermediate grammar useful to its possessor.” In this paper, Pinker and Bloom argue that human language evolved by natural selection as many other specialized biological systems. Though I can’t say I fully agree with this approach since the hard problem is not discussed by the author, but I do agree with their argument that language develops by small steps over time.
ReplyDeleteThe authors made an interesting point to support their argument of exaptation by stating that, “Pidgins, contact languages, Basic English, and the language of children, immigrants, tourists, aphasics, telegrams, and headlines provide ample proof that there is a vast continuum of viable communicative systems displaying a continuous gradation of efficiency and expressive power”.
I find the continuum of our communicative systems very interesting. In my opinion, it reflects the gap between our learning and innate structures of language, as the difference we see in language capacities between L1 and L2 speakers; in addition, the continuum also shows that how specific language has been evolved through gradual natural selection – different forms of communicative system can be viewed as the language at different stages of its development.
“But now consider an organism where the connections are either genetically fixed to one or the other value or are settable by learning, determined by random mutation with an average of 10 connections fixed. The organism tries out random settings for the modifiable connections until it hits upon the combination that is advantageous; this is recognizable to the organism and causes it to retain those settings. Having attained that state the organism enjoys a higher rate of reproduction;” (page 31)
ReplyDeleteI don’t see how this learning can affect evolution. I understand the example described on page 31 where the authors detail how one individual would gradually adapt to have a higher percentage of the overall connections properly set, however this doesn’t necessarily imply that this will be passed on to their children in the form of an innate ability. Likewise, I can see how language is evolutionarily useful (e.g. the importance of subtle semantic differences, also described in this paper) but I don’t see how this translates into Universal Grammar (i.e. an innate ability to learn language).
Theres no way to prove if human language is the product of darwinian natural selection or not. I think that Jay Gould’s spandrel argument is a bit of a stretch. How could something so powerful as language simply be the side effect of something else? That would be like saying the power of sight is a side effect of the eye. It’s not the side effect, of the eye; it’s the purpose of the eye! Even if language somehow started as a side effect, it definitely has evolved into something much more.
ReplyDelete"When Chomsky argues that anything you find in one language can also be found in every other language” I think that hurts his argument more than helps it. If there is a universally shared aspect of language, then wouldn’t that be evidence that there is an inherent part of language that we all share due to natural selection?