The Germ of Language

Louis Pasteur (1822-1895)Let ’s begin with a ridiculous  question: there are many possible grammars, most of which are too complicated for humans  to speak, and yet all the thousands of grammars used by humans just happen to be grammars  that we can learn to speak, and learn quite readily. How did that improbable truth com e about?Presumably everybody can see immediately that only learnable grammars will be used and passed down through the generations, so of course we all use learnable grammars. There is, however, a hidden assumption in this explanation. Grammar itself must have been selected to fit the human cognitive environment. It could not be an innate. If it were somehow imposed on humans from the outside, the odds that the grammar built into our brain would be usable would indeed be so small as to be miraculous.I have begun this report so strangely, in response to a paper that has been posted on the internet byHubert Haider and   titledAn anthropic principle in lieu of a “Universal Grammar”. The ‘anthropic principle’ of the title is a proposed answer to the question that there are many conceivable universes where the arbitrary values of fundamental constants in physics are different, and in most of  these universes people are impossible. How did the improbable come about so that, of al l the possible universes, we got one in which human life is also possible?At this point it is tempting to soar off on a tangent about the anthropic principle and the natur...
Source: Babel's Dawn - Category: Speech-Language Pathology Authors: Source Type: blogs