LIN 291 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Paleoanthropology, Modeling Language, Indo
Document Summary
Child judgements (near the box vs in the box) Language development sans stimuli: nicaraguan sign language: some args against: Common features of language does not entail biology. Learning can be purely inductive and statistically driven. Theory of mind: you have the ability to attribute mental states to yourself, as well as that others can think. Capacity to conceptualize representations: in our heads, we can group things together. Capacity for deixis (or to refer to things like me that require contextual information: no real consensus, but most scientists are modelling language off of other evolved mechanisms which are more or less continuous. Ian tattersall - british paleoanthropologist, works with lemurs. Fossil evidence: it used to be much higher up in our throats, but eventually moved downwards, very close to the pharynx. It"s maladaptive (choking risk: the larynx located where it is, this allows for phonation.
