Science and Speech in Determining "Human" Kind

Jon writes:

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This bird doesn't speak a language in the same sense (or even close) to the way humans can.

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Nobody is saying otherwise. Just because something is different in scope doesn't mean it is different in kind. We all agree that humans have very complex linguistic skills.That doesn't mean no other animal has them.I point out that children do the exact same thing that Alex does. Would you say that children aren't "speaking" at that point?

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She also does not inflect the word 'block', showing that the bird has not grasped one of the most fundamental components of language: grammar.

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And neither does a two-year-old. Does that mean the child isn't "speaking"?

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I do not see this as anything significant.

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So how do you explain Koko discussing her feelings about the death of her kitten, Ball?

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

Jon responds to me:

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Where did I say that no other animal had them?

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Did you or did you not indicate that Alex wasn't really speaking? That you "do not see this as anything significant"?

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Word repetition is not the only aspect of language

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See, this goes back to a point I made a long time ago:Don't confuse "speech" with "language." The two are not the same.Where did I say, "word repetition"? I simply pointed out that a child whom we would claim is "speaking" does exactly the same thing that Alex did. They'll request things and then when you give them, they'll refuse it. Why is it "speaking" when we see a child do it but it is simply "word repetition" when a non-human does it?

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With a lexicon of 100 words, and nothing else, a creature can only express 100 different concepts/ideas/etc.

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Now, that's not true and you know it. That's the point behind language: It allows you to combine the terms into things that are more than the sum of their parts. Simply having the word "not" in your vocabulary doubles the number of things you can say.

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Would you say a human could speak if he could only express 100 different ideas? No.

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Yes, I would. The fact that his linguistic skills aren't very sophisticated doesn't mean he doesn't have them.Using your logic, what is the magic number of words needed to be said to be capable of "speech"? English is one of the largest langauges out there with around a million words. Compare this to French which has a much smaller lexicon. If we only go with words in common use, French has about half the number of words as English. Does that mean that English has more "speechiness" than French? When one is using English, one is "speechier" than when one uses French?

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There is also need of a grammar, or rather, a set of rules that govern how the words relate.

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Indeed. But you seem to think that in order for it to be called "speech," that grammar has to be that of a sophisticated user of the language.Look at the way children learn an inflected language. The first thing they learn is a single concept. It gets used for everything. "Give." But because they are impressed with the regular method of inflection so often, they apply the regular inflection method to it. "Gived." It's only later that they come to learn that it has an irregular inflection. "Gave."Surely we're not going to say that the child hasn't learned how to speak until learning the irregular inflection, are we? It isn't the same grammar, but it is a grammar nonetheless.

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The bird just mumbles out sounds that are either completely random or simple responses to stimuli

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That's not true. Alex did much more than that. When presented with a complex field and asked to count how many of a specific type requiring recognition of multiple characteristics simultaneously, he was able to correctly respond.Is that the most sophisticated thing in the world? Of course not. But it is indicative of a basic level of speech.

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But a child will understand 'blocks' and 'block' as being morphologies of the same thing.

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Oh? Then why doesn't the child use "blocks"? Why is it always "block"? The ability to inflect the word to include plurality comes later. There are languages where the notion of plurality is not done through inflection but through an auxilliary term. Children don't immediately pick this up, though. It takes them time to figure out how to form plurals.

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Why did the bird not understand the grammar?

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Because the bird doesn't have the identical method of speech that we do. That doesn't make it "word mimicry." It simply means that the bird's method of speech is different from ours.

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Because the bird is incapable of understanding grammar.

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So a child who hasn't yet mastered plurality "is incapable of understanding grammar"? The vocalizations of a child between two and three aren't really "speech"?

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The child clearly understands the grammar

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Says who? The child clearly gets confused when you use inflections. By your logic, this clearly means that the child "has no understanding or grasp on langauge."So if you're going to say that the child is "speaking" even though said child is displaying all the characteristics of Alex, why is it Alex isn't "speaking"? Simply because Alex isn't going to get any better at it?

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Unless Koko's a bird, I don't see how that's even relevant.

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Because you're making the same argument that people use to claim that Koko isn't "speaking." It's just "mimicry." That because Koko isn't using perfect grammar, it isn't really "speech."I'm trying to point out that what Alex is doing is a difference in degree, not kind.

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

Jon responds to me:

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Do you have any idea what you're talking about, and did you bother reading anything I wrote?

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Yes. I am capable of language and can understand writing.Shall I turn the question back to you?

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How do you combine them if you have a lexicon and 'nothing else'?

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Who said there was "nothing else"? That's what you're trying to claim. We have evidence that there is something else because Alex (and Koko and all those other animals we've been studying) have been doing exactly what we would call "speech" if those actions were being carried out by humans.So if it's speech when a human does it, why is it something else when a non-human does it?

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My apologies, but if that is the case, then you are an idiot.

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Ah, ah, ah...such langauge will get you banned.[Note to admins: I'm a big boy. I can handle this.]I see: Disagreeing with you is indicative of idiocy. Despite the fact that we have researchers who have literally spent their lives on this, you know more than they do.I guess they're all a bunch of idiots, then.Here, help us out. I'll ask you the same question we've been asking IamJoseph:What is your definition of "speech"?So far, you've made a couple negative claims ("If you can't do X, then you can't do "speech") that the evidence shows Alex shows positive evidence of. Ergo, Alex must be capable of "speech."

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Where did I specify that a particular grammar was required?

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Did you or did you not harp on the fact that Alex can't respond to the plural inflection? You then indicated that this means Alex doesn't understand the grammar.And yet, Alex clearly understands the concept of number because he will respond to number. The fact that he doesn't have the capacity to deal with inflections doesn't mean he has no sense of grammar. Again, there are languages that don't use inflections to indicate plurality. They use an auxilliary term.And yet, children learning that language don't immediately start using that auxilliary term when referring to plurality. They haven't gotten that far. They use the base term for everything. By your logic, because they don't use the indicator of plurality, this means they don't have any grammar and thus are incapable of speech.So what is it they're doing? "Mimicry"?

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He responded to a simple stimulus, much like a dog when you say 'fetch ball'.

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He did much more than that. If you tell the dog, "Fetch second nubbly ball," when presented with a field that contains multiple balls, some of which are nubbly and some of which are not, he's not going to be able to do it when you start mixing up the field.Alex, on the other hand, can. If you present him a field of round and square blocks, some big, some small, some blue, some green, some red, and ask him how many big, green cubes there are, he can tell you even if you mix up the field. If it were a simple stimulus-response, then the response to "How many big, green cube?" would always be the same.Instead, his answer varies depending upon what is actually presented in front of him.

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If I gave you the word: 'kloomp', and told you it was a noun, you could tell me its plural, because you understand the grammar.

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Not if I haven't made it to plurality yet. Surely you're not saying that grammar depends upon the existence of plurality, are you? You do know that there are some langauges that don't have a plural, yes? Are those who use such language not "speaking"?You are harping on the details of the grammar rather than grasping the concept of what a grammar does. Not all languages have the same grammar. In Chinese, which is a highly analytic language, word order is extremely important in determining meaning. Latin, on the other hand, is a highly synthetic langauge and word order isn't nearly as important. So long as each word is inflected correctly, you can string them together pretty much any way you want.English is in the middle. In English, if you are describing a balloon with regard to its color and size, you say, "The big, red balloon." It is not technically incorrect to say, "The red, big balloon," since your meaning hasn't changed by reversing the adjectival order, but there's something about that phrasing that is just off and you hardly ever hear anybody putting the color adjective before the size adjective in English unless they're trying to make a point.So seeing as how we all agree there are languages that have different grammars, why are you harping on the fact that Alex hasn't grasped plurality? Why can't we have a grammar that doesn't indicate plurality? Why does that single failure mean he is incapable of "speech"?What do you mean by "speech"?

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Though I disagree with him here, it'd be better to simply argue within his definitions rather than trying to argue him on semantics.

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Do you truly not see the point? Since he is refusing to define his terms, insisting upon the distinction between "speech" and "language" is an attempt to get him to define what he means by "speech."He is so adamant on refusing to define what he is talking about that I seriously wonder if he thinks sign isn't an actual langauge.

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

Jon responds to Vacate:

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I can think of many that have a vocabulary of less than ten words.

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Do they also have grammar?

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And if the answer is yes, what then?What is the magic number of words needed in order for it to be called "speech"?

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What do you define as 'speech'?

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Nice try, but that's our question to you. Since what Alex is doing is identical to what we define in humans as "speech," you're going to have to define why it isn't.While you're at it, please explain why the linguists have it wrong when they describe what Alex was doing as "speech." Everyone agrees it isn't very sophisticated. But surely sophistication isn't the defining characteristic, is it?

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

Jon responds to me:

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If you think someone who's memorised Webster's front to back and nothing else”grammar, inflections, syntax, etc.”can be said to possess 'language', then you rightly are an idiot.

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But that's just it: Alex did have grammar and syntax. That they were not as sophisticated as an adult human's grammar and syntax merely shows a difference in degree, not kind.It comes down to that: Did Alex have grammar and syntax? You say no. All the linguists who worked with Alex say yes.I seriously doubt we're going to get beyond that.

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Sure, because people who play fetch with their dogs always make sure to throw the items in the exact place, each time...

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Hmm...seems you don't know that the word "fetch" has multiple meanings. Does that mean you are incapable of nothing more than "stimulus/response"?"Fetch" does not necessarily mean I'm throwing the ball.

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That parrot possesses no greater capacity for language than the dog

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Why not? The parrot has grammar and syntax. Oh, that's right. You keep saying it doesn't though it displays every example of what we would call such were it being spoken by a human.You say no. Every linguist who has worked with Alex says yes.I doubt we'll be able to get past that.

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You have yet to show his positive evidence of understanding grammar.

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What part of recognizing a question isn't grammar? It's simplistic and small, yes, but it is grammar.

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That the trainer in the video does not inflect 'block' should be evidence that she is just trying to fool people

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Why? Children don't inflect "block." Are they not "speaking"? Do they not have grammar? There are some languages where the entire concept of inflection to indicitate plurality DOES NOT EXIST. Does that mean it doesn't have a grammar? It's only grammar if it inflects for plurality?We're back to the sticking point. You say no. All the linguists say yes.I don't think we're going to be able to get past that.

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Sure... the auxiliary term is part of the grammar

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But there are some langauges that don't even have that. No inflection of any kind. The concept of plurality simply does not exist. Does that mean there is no grammar? The only way to have grammar is to have plurality?

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Because the bird doesn't have grammar.

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Says who? You? Why should we believe you? All the linguists who worked with Alex contradict you. Why should your opinion count for more than those who worked with Alex?We're back to the sticking point. You say no. The linguists say yes.I don't think we're going to be able to get past that.

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Again, you can communicate with the child using proper grammar

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But the child doesn't respond to you using the same grammar. Instead, the child responds using a different grammar. The only reason that we can understand what the child is saying is because we are sophisticated enough users of language that we can translate the child's grammar into our own.So Alex cannot translate our grammar. Why does that mean he doesn't have any?

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they all have a grammar of some kind, else they are not languages.

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And Alex has grammar. Ergo, he has language.But, we're back to the sticking point. You say no. All the linguists who have worked with Alex say yes.I don't think we're going to be able to get past that.

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Because, plurality is part of the grammar of English

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Who said Alex spoke English? There are languages that don't have any plurality in their grammars. Does that mean they're not really languages? If not, why does Alex's lack of plurality mean he isn't using language?Who said Alex spoke English? Not that long ago, English wasn't nearly as analytic as it is now. The reversal of syntax that is so iconic of Yoda from Star Wars was commonplace because word order wasn't that important. Things have changed. The grammar has changed. Even though a lot of the words are the same, the rules for how to construct statements have changed. In a very real sense, it's a different language.Who said Alex spoke English?

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As it is, there's no indication that the bird understands grammar

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...except for the linguists that worked with him.We're back to the sticking point. You say no. All the linguists who worked with Alex say yes.I don't think we're going to be able to get past that.

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Besides, most people are not taught their grammar

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Oh, yes, they are! In the very act of teaching the language, you teach the grammar. Listen to any parent as they talk to their child, correcting the mistakes so the child learns how to say things correctly. Oh, it's not a formal teaching session with chalkboards and essays, but it's teaching just the same.

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That the bird has not been taught grammar, nor has acquired it through being in the presence of his trainers is rather conclusive evidence that he lacks the capacity to understand grammar.

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Except that the bird does have grammar. It's just different from ours.We're back to the sticking point. You say no. All the linguists who have worked with Alex say yes.I don't think we're going to be able to get past that.

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You yourself have used them as synonyms in this very post.

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I know, but that's because I know what those terms mean.IamJoseph, on the other hand, seems to think that when one is using sign language, one is not "speaking." All linguistic references I have ever seen to sign language do call it "speaking," even though it isn't transmitted via sound. It's a "verbal" method of communication even though it is transmitted manually rather than vocally.

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Making sounds is not language(/speech), even if they sound like words.

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True, but you need to take the next step: Even if the words sound like English, that doesn't mean it is.

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

Jon writes:

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One of the base components of the English grammar is plural inflection.

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Who said Alex spoke English? Just because the words sound like English doesn't mean it is.

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He was not shown to understand plural inflection.

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That simply means his grammar doesn't use plurality. There are languages that don't. Why are you assuming Alex is using English grammar? Just because the words sound like English?Who said Alex spoke English?

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Will you please show me how what the bird is doing is any different than what a dog can do?

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You were already shown. Alex is responding to the grammar and syntax of the question with the appropriate answer.If you put a group of balls in front of a dog, some nubbly and some not, and say, "Fetch second nubbly ball," the dog isn't going to know what to do.Alex, on the other hand, can tease out the meaning because he has grammar and syntax.

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Will you present evidence of the presence of an understanding of grammar in this bird?

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What part of understanding a question isn't grammar?

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

Jon writes:

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Mere ability to give the trained stimuli response is not an indication that the bird has grasped grammar.

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But that's just it: It isn't "mere ability to give the trained stimuli response." Why? Because there isn't any trained response. If I give a stimulus for which there is more than one possible reaction but only one of which is correct, then it is not a trained response.Alex could have made any particular noise. That is, after all, the trained response. But there is only a specific noise that is appropriate and it cannot be gleaned simply because a stimulus has been provided. That is, there is no one-to-one connection between the stimulus is and what Alex is supposed to do.If it were stimulus/response, then "how many green block?" would always get the same response. Instead, Alex gives a contextually accurate response.

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Is that what you'd say of a dog who rolls over when given the command to 'sit'?

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Actually, I'd need to know more. Why? Because when my parents' dog was told to sit, she'd lie down. Why? Because we had only taught her two tricks: Sit and lie down. And guess what? Right after "sit" always came "lie down" and "lie down" never came first. She eventually figured out that when we said "sit," we wanted her to lie down so she did.The question is, does Alex always do that or only sometimes? Because the dog tends to do the same response to the same stimuli no matter the context. Alex, on the other hand, gives contextually accurate responses.Ergo, Alex is doing something beyond stimulus/response.

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

Jon responds to me:

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The consensus by the linguistic community is that what the bird does is not language.

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Incorrect. The exact opposite is true.Do not confuse people who are commenting upon Alex but who never worked with him to be "the linguistic community."That is akin to saying that we should trust the governor of New York to discuss the actions of the governor of California since they are both governors. Never mind that the governor of New York has never had to deal with the California Assembly. He's a governor! Of course he knows!But you're right. This debate probably won't continue.You say no. All the linguists who worked with Alex say yes. Somehow, I don't think we're going to be able to get past that.

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That they were not as sophisticated as an adult human's grammar and syntax merely shows a difference in degree, not kind.
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...though it displays every example of what we would call such were it being spoken by a human.

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Explain to me how this isn't contradictory.

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Because children are human but don't have the sophisticated grammar and syntax of adults. If the children are considered to be "speaking," then why isn't Alex?You're invoking the logical error of special pleading.

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So Alex cannot translate our grammar.

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Not the point.

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Incorrect. That is precisely the point. You're trying to force your grammar on him and then, when he fails to live up to your preconceived notion, claim that he doesn't have any grammar.And yet, there are myriad langauges that don't follow the grammar of English. You seem to think they're languages, so why does the fact that Alex doesn't follow English grammar mean he doesn't have any?Who said Alex was speaking English?

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The bird does not recognise a 'body of rules' that can form 'all of the sentences that are permissible in a given language'.

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Yes, he does.Who said Alex was speaking English?

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Until you can tell me how the bird's behaviour represents his understanding of grammar

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Already done. What part of comprehending a question isn't grammar?

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

Jon responds to me:

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You haven't shown that the bird understands.

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Except that the bird understands the questions presented to him.

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You haven't shown that understanding = grammar.

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Except that the very comprehension of a question is indicative of grammar.

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You haven't presented the list of linguists agreeing with you.

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Because that's presumed from the people who were working with him. Have you not read their work in the first place? That's the starting point.You're 0 for 3, friend.

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.