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LANGUAGE AND REASONING IN HUMANS AND OTHER ANIMALS Tatiana Chernigovskaya

LANGUAGE AND REASONING IN HUMANS AND OTHER ANIMALS Tatiana Chernigovskaya St. Petersburg State University. D. Premack: Human language is an embarrassment for evolutionary theory Архиепископ Лука (В. Ф. Войно-Ясенецкий) : Сколько сделал я операций на мозге, ни разу не видел там ума!.

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LANGUAGE AND REASONING IN HUMANS AND OTHER ANIMALS Tatiana Chernigovskaya

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  1. LANGUAGE AND REASONING IN HUMANS AND OTHER ANIMALS Tatiana Chernigovskaya St. Petersburg State University

  2. D. Premack: Human language is an embarrassment for evolutionary theory • Архиепископ Лука (В. Ф. Войно-Ясенецкий) : Сколько сделал я операций на мозге, ни разу не видел там ума!

  3. Nature vs. Nurture What comes from Biology (genetics) and what comes from cultural development?

  4. Darwin: The difference between humans and other species is not qualitative but quantitative

  5. Cradle of Language, South Africa ;Birdsong, Speech and Language. Converging Mechanisms, Utrecht2007 • Protolanguage - arose about a million years ago in Homo erectus and has distinctive devices (sequential order, null elements, arguments of verbs, mechanisms for expansion and grammatical correctness) (Bickerton 1990) • Autonomous vocal language, with a largely nonessential visual component, may have arisen [in Africa] from a genetic mutation some time between 100,000 and 250,000 year ago (Crow 1997,2000, 2006, Corballis 2003) • Fully syntactical language is arguably an essential requisite to share and transmit the symbolic meaning of beadworks and abstract engravings such as those from Blombos Cave [inhabited ± 75,000 years ago]." (Henshilwood et al. 2004)

  6. Cradle of Language, South Africa ;Birdsong, Speech and Language. Converging Mechanisms, Utrecht,2007 • An analysis of Middle Stone Age artefacts found at the Klasies River] show that by at least 115,000 years ago, people were able to think and speak symbolically. (Wurz 2000) • Animal vocalizations led not to speech but to song (Nobuo Masataka, 2007) • Recursiveness in human language (Eric Reuland 2007) vs. Recursive vocal processing in birds and humans (Daniel Margoliash, 2007) • Еmbedding. Syntax, Imitation, Quoting and Theory of Mind. (Chomsky, 2002; Fitch, 2007)

  7. BUT ! - Talking apes… • No genes for this • However, it’s a fact and it is caused by ‘education’

  8. Properties of Human language revealed in‘talking’ primates • Conventional nomination and even word constuction • Semantic syntax (in Vygotsky’s terms): Topic-Comment in 2-words’pharazes similar to human language development in small children • Productivity • Transferability ( speaking of objects out of sight). Cognitive maps

  9. Properties of Human language revealed in‘talking’ primates • Ability to use lexicograms NOW and THEN • Cultural succession (they talk to each other using Amslang, theu teach their children and even other peaople • Ability to use lexicograms YOURS and MINE and ability to recognize themselves in the mirror ( a feature of the ToM) • Ability to plan a multi-step action and to foresee the consequence

  10. Properties of Human language revealed in‘talking’ primates • Metaphoric transfer - joking and cursing • Ability to change roles in a dialogue • Ability to use core syntax • Ability to perceive oral human speech and to translate it to Amslang

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