Magnus Berg wrote:
>
> Hi Squad
>
> October is 6 days away so it's time to post suggestions for next month's topic.
Hello everyone
I'd like to enter Mark's suggestion:
-------
DAN:
"I tend to see the development of language as evolutionary
valuing of
preconditioned subject/object awareness. For example, Bo
once mentioned
Helen Keller and her struggle to gain knowledge to
communicate with
others. Metaphorically seen in her light, certainly we
humans possessed
language skills before civilization, but without a
preconditional way
(language in humans) in which to communicate, social
structures would
have no value latching opportunities. Before civilization
as
historically recorded, humans lived and thrived and died
for tens and
hundreds of thousands of years quite possibly in
tribal\family units,
which again value preconditioned communication. I seriously
doubt there
could be language as we know it without preconditioned
subject/object
awareness."
(...sounds like a wonderful topic suggestion for October.)
This "preconditioned way" reminds me of Chomsky's theory of
Universal Grammar- that we have innate language properties
metaphorically embodied in a 'little black box' or Language
Acquisition Device (LAD). This might explain our radical
acquisition of language (3-4 years!) in spite of its
complex system of rules. So then would there have been
something about the early grammar of the pre-Subject-Object
language that rendered it unprepared for self-conscious
awareness? and what might this something have been?
--------
Thank you.
Dan
MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:03:26 BST