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Re: Language, gesture, etc.
Ania Lian (ania@LINGUA.CLTR.UQ.OZ.AU)
Thu, 15 Feb 1996 11:22:52 +1000
On Wed, 14 Feb 1996, Ruby Rohrlich wrote:
> And what about the fact that when you go into a country whose language you
> don't know, you can frequently make yourself understood through
> gestures. Ruby Rohrlich
But that does not change the point that gesture is cultural, and for
culture to form, communication is needed, this also was a point in
Holloway's mail.
Further, for communication to exist a kind of grammar is needed for
concepts to be understood. There is a grammar underlying the concepts.
What upsets me always is whan the great linguists say that children think
in words.. !! It's interesting that these in words
with no gramar thinking children it is the music, the gesture the
intonation of langauge that we can see first demonstrated. Also it is
interesting that we do not speak to children with words only. They know
about grammar very well, as they have grammar in them, concepts are about
relationships and grammar is about relationships.
I do not talk about UG (read: ag) :-) as I do not like to trace back
everything to the unknown that we assume to know, but if UG exsist then
probably in the form of awareness of relationships. And chimps know a lot
about relationships, they know whom to castrate when they want supremacy
over a group, they know what castration does to creatures, they do have a
grammar of reason, reasoning, relating and understanding relationships.
Grammar to people who think like me is not a morphological ending, or
word order. It is an ability to produce solvable and to solve
"produced" relationships.
ania
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