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Sami gansam12

Alicia amjolley

Evelyn Huxley1860

Laura Newlau31

Sundee - sbvandi

Morgan - Douninowt

= //A Man Without Words// =

march 15th Hello all I have added some related stories to the talk page... not sure how to used it but I wanted to contribute. Are we adding all our contect to the man witout words article? or something else??? Im confused. Anyway I can do more just not sure which direction we are going in. talk tonight i guess :) sundee

I finally can edit the page...it must have been a comuter thing...I'm using a different one now...just wanted to tell you all I'm here! - sundee Hey guys I cant find where you are posting the stuff for the wiki...sorry i miss last week. Anyway, I have done some research on Genie and other feral children and both the speech delays that are present and the failure to thrive phemoenom that takes place then a child is under simulationed in the certical time have also found fascinatelt research about childre in orphanges in serbia. They children are kept in cribs and are never allowed to leave. Their are twenty year old adults that are not biggered than a small child. They often times have bodies that have conformed to their cribs with contorted limbs. Its an amazing documnetary and I think we can incooperate the failure to thrive epidemic into our speech delay theme. Anyone have any suggestion? I will be my research and write up a blurb about all of this so Is language of thought as addressed by Fodor (1975). Different from theory of mind?
 * **Exaptation**, **cooption**, and ** [|preadaptation] ** are related terms referring to shifts in the function of a trait during [|evolution] . For example, a trait can evolve because it served one particular function, but subsequently it may come to serve another. Exaptations are common in both anatomy and behaviour. Bird feathers are a classic example: initially these may have evolved for temperature regulation, but later were adapted for flight. Interest in exaptation relates to both the process and product of evolution: the process that creates complex traits and the product that may be imperfectly designed. (from wikipedia) ||

"Things cannot be other than they are ... Everything is made for the best purpose. Our noses were made to carry spectacles, so we have spectacles. Legs were clearly intended for breeches, and we wear them." This Voltaire quote really helped me understand the Pinker & Bloom article.

I took it to mean units.
== The "tokens" refer to Nim's use of a particular phrase. Also, the following link provides an overview of the statistical language used in the study about Nim. [|Nim's Language] You will want to type "Nim" in the search box at the top of the file, as the document is 24 pages long and Nim's section is only briefly mentioned! Hope this helps!//**--Laura**//==

I can finally post on here! Shouldn't be that exciting but... Alicia
Here's your wiki for reading group #4. Have fun!

hello everybody, i think i am on! i do not see anybody else's post yet, say hi if you see me and we can start this process :)


 * I'm in! YAY- This is Evelyn AKA Huxley 1860. **


 * Yay! I see your post :) --Laura**

**I am here! Sami**

** I see it. Success! --Morgan **

yay I can post! --Farrin

I am still stuck thinking about the pidgin language comparison in Bickerton page 39. we mentioned it in the discussion group briefly. "That is the nearest you and I will ever come to feeling what things were like at the dawn of language." maybe it is the closest we can come, but it is sdefinitly not the same thing. if i am in a foreign country, I know there is a language. Bickerton admits;" it's as hard for us to forget that we already have language as it is for a jury to heed the judge's admonition [to forget what you know about a case]" no, i believe that would not be the same thing. it is not just conscious forgetting, it is having the ability to have language thanks to a specialized, evolutionary honed brain, primed by the learning of a language and spared the pruning of ability if not exposed at early age. I cannot pretend not to have language capabilities. Bickerton goes on to stress that pointing out a difference is not enough unless one points out the reason there is a difference. so, the difference is that if I could forget that i know what a language is, i could not forget that I have a brain developed to support that skill. in pidgin, it appears to me that all i am doing is find common ground with another speaker. we have to find agreeance on what sounds to use for what. we know that the sounds represent things, tangible as well as abstract. we cannot forget that we know an abstract exists. so if it is not like pidgin, what was it like? maybe it is more like you sit happily doing what you are doing and someone hands you a strange and mysterious object. you have never seen it. you are naturally curious, so you look at it, bite it, smell it, taste it, you don't know what it is. so you either forget about it and do something else, or you give it back to the person that gave it to you and watch. if someone gives my imaginary ancestor a sound, would i copy it back at them? would the meaning come from the others reaction? it has to be more than just agreeing on terms for things. I saw a dog on tv that knew 200 words, meaning that the trainer and the dog agreed on the meaning of a lot of words, with one player not even having language capability. the trainer gave a sound, and the dog figured out that if he fetches the item the sound represents, good things happen to the dog. the example seems to limp, as it is onesided, but still, someone has to start and offer a sound. dogs are just so much more aggreeable than there are efficient in articulating sound. so how about this, i sit around the fire with my friends, i have a baby i am nursing but I want some of the nuts you have sitting next to you. i indicate using a gesture maybe and a sound that i would like some of these nuts and it would be nice if you could hand them to me so i will not disturb the baby. you are hopefully of a highly cooperative species and give me the nuts. some of them anyway. we all happy. this would only work with a species that finds reward in cooperating. luckily humans are most cooperative, even if sometimes it does not appear to be so, we score high on innate desire to get along with people. or you come to me and say "oorraatt" i probably say "oorraatt?" you smile and start delousing my dreadlocks. if i had dreads, and if i had lice. next time you come to me and say "oorraatt" i will turn my head right to you because i know you got good plans. you on the other hand have the advantage of offering my a grooming out of reach of my long arms and my big teeth in case I am crabby and feel my bubble was invaded. win-win :) --sylvia