Newsgroups: sci.lang
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!bb3.andrew.cmu.edu!newsfeed.pitt.edu!scramble.lm.com!news.math.psu.edu!news3.cac.psu.edu!howland.erols.net!netcom.com!petrich
From: petrich@netcom.com (Loren Petrich)
Subject: Re: Language Hard-Wired in the Brain?
Message-ID: <petrichDxnIwq.J6I@netcom.com>
Keywords: language origin
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
References: <4vv851$evi@server-b.cs.interbusiness.it> <seagoat.543.02080E97@primenet.com> <petrichDxM3B3.LuF@netcom.com> <seagoat.545.0017B99D@primenet.com>
Date: Fri, 13 Sep 1996 03:26:50 GMT
Lines: 41
Sender: petrich@netcom14.netcom.com

In article <seagoat.545.0017B99D@primenet.com>,
John A. Halloran <seagoat@primenet.com> wrote:
>In article <petrichDxM3B3.LuF@netcom.com> petrich@netcom.com (Loren Petrich) writes:

>>        Which does not explain the numerous Paleolithic-level societies 
>>that have had language. Especially in places very distant from the 
>>Fertile Crescent.

>As I pointed out in some earlier quotes about American Indian languages, the 
>shallow lexicostatistical time-depth of these languages indicates that the 
>concept of language spread to these peoples relatively recently.

	Irrelevant. This means only that the Amerindian languages cluster 
in well-defined families, which may well be distantly related.

	And that does not even address the question of why there exists 
*NO* human society of physiologically normal individuals that has no 
language. I'd be happy to learn of counterexamples, and subcultures that 
use varieties of language considered substandard do not count. So how did 
that influence from the Fertile Crescent of 10,000 years ago spread all 
over the globe???

>>>If language did not evolve until the Neolithic as an abstract representational 
>>>system, the vocal tract could still have evolved to support paralanguage. ...

>>        Language, by any other name...

>Paralanguage may not be the right word, since it describes the tonal affect 
>that is attached to the morphemes that a person produces.  What I mean, and 
>for which I cannot find the right word, are vocalizations that carry emotional 
>import only. ...

	But reshaping the vocal tract to make one vulnerable to choking, 
specializing various brain areas, etc. seem like a heck of a lot of 
overadaptation for such communication, since it can be managed quite 
easily with a simian-style vocal tract.
-- 
Loren Petrich				Happiness is a fast Macintosh
petrich@netcom.com			And a fast train
My home page: http://www.webcom.com/petrich/home.html
Mirrored at: ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/pe/petrich/home.html


