PSY274H5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Recapitulation Theory, Vocal Tract, Proto-Language
Document Summary
Differences of language criteria in the textbook: they included: rules that constitute grammar. Innateness: the ability to refer to abstractions (related to semanticity and displacement i. e. things can be denoted with symbols, cognitive processing (i. e. memory) Design features provide criteria that evaluate naturally occurring animal communication systems (even humans) The point of this is not to teach non-human animals human language. The evolution of language: when and how did language evolve. This topic is criticized to be overly speculative (the societe de linguistique de. Paris banned this discussion as they do not believe it can be scientifically backed) The issue with studying ancient language is that there were no fossils or data to record what language was like back the olden days. E(cid:454)a(cid:373)ples of spe(cid:272)ulati(cid:448)e h(cid:455)pothesis fro(cid:373) that era : bow-wow theory language arose because humans were imitating sounds in their environment. The evidence = universal use of sounds as interjections (i. e. oww, wow!)
