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    Comments on Robert Berwick and Noam Chomsky's Book (2016) Why Only Us?
    Comments on Robert Berwick and Noam Chomsky's Book (2016) Why Only Us?
    Comments on Robert Berwick and Noam Chomsky's Book (2016) Why Only Us?
    Ebook55 pages27 minutes

    Comments on Robert Berwick and Noam Chomsky's Book (2016) Why Only Us?

    By Razie Mah

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    In 2016, Robert Berwick and Noam Chomsky published a book on the evolution of language. They focus on computational systems and universal grammar, the respective fields of expertise for each author. They endorse a familiar proposal. Human language appeared right before the appearance of symbolic cultural artifacts in the fossil record. Such artifacts date as far back as 150kyr (more or less).
    The do not develop their argument in the Greek style, where all other possibilities are eliminated. Instead, they follow the Semitic style, where discourse aims to open the mind to a particular possibility. This possibility concerns a recent (later than 300kyr ago) small change in genetic makeup potentiating the cognitive union of speech (parole) and thought (langue). A small genetic alteration yielded a brain structure expressing universal grammar.
    The Semitic style is redundant, evocative and loopy. Indeed, the entire book forms a loop, beginning and ending with the question: Why?
    Why do some birds learn their songs and other instinctively cluck out their tunes? Why do humans speak? Why do humans express a huge diversity of mother tongues, yet everyone starts with genetically similar brains? Why do humans talk to themselves?
    At any point, the authors yearn to break out of their scientific constraints. Yet they do not. That will be the task of these comments. This breakout uses the category-based nested form in order to re-imagine this familiar proposal, now dressed in the garbs of computer science and linguistic theory.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRazie Mah
    Release dateFeb 4, 2018
    ISBN9781942824367
    Comments on Robert Berwick and Noam Chomsky's Book (2016) Why Only Us?
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    Razie Mah

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      Book preview

      Comments on Robert Berwick and Noam Chomsky's Book (2016) Why Only Us? - Razie Mah

      Comments on Robert Berwick and Noam Chomsky’s Book (2016) Why Only Us

      By Razie Mah

      Published for Smashwords.com

      2018

      Notes on Text

      In Why Only Us: Language and Evolution, computational scientist Robert Berwick linguist joins Noam Chomsky in a rehash of a familiar proposal: Human language appears at the same time as archaeological evidence for symbolic cultural artifacts. These comments offer an alternate approach using category-based nested forms.

      Prerequisites include A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form (#1) and Sensible and Social Construction (#2).

      ‘Words that belong together’ are denoted by single quotes or italics.

      Table of Contents

      Prelude

      First Key Point

      Second Key Point

      Third Key Point

      An Example

      Evolutionary History and the Niche of Language

      Moving towards the Bitter End

      Prelude

      0001 Why Only Us: Language and Evolution begins with a question.

      It ends with the same question.

      0002 This pattern reflects a Semitic textual style. Berwick and Chomsky want the reader to recognize a possibility.

      That possibility concerns language.

      0003 The possibility addresses many questions: Why does language evolve? Is it for communication or mental symbolic processing? What about the mechanics of speech? Are we like birds? Birds vocalize. Some birds learn their songs. Some don’t. What is meaning of their words?

      0004 Um... what am I saying?

      0005 In Sura 30, verse 22, Mohammed recites that the varieties of languages and colors are signs of God.

      Yes, for each of us, there is only one tongue and one pair of eyes. For all of us, there are many languages and many colors.

      Mohammed, also, wants the reader to recognize a possibility.

      First Key Point

      0006 Why do humans talk? Why do birds sing?

      0007 Let me go back to a pair of primal ancestral hominins. They bond because the female needs a male for protection. Her male is necessary to deter infanticide by other males. He does other things as well. He brings home bone fat from an already scavenged carcass some distance off.

      0008 How does he do it?

      He follows the vultures in order to locate a carcass. It is already mostly eaten. But, long bones are full of fat. Few animals can chew through the bone. He uses a crude stone tool to crack open the long bones. He eats his fill and now carries

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