Re: THEORY: Question about the evolution of language

On Tue, 7 Sep 1999, JOEL MATTHEW PEARSON wrote:

[snip]
> Linguistic development requires linguistic input
        I'm perhaps missing the intended point of this thread, but this
phrase interested me.  It seems true enough; without some model to
follow, I doubt a true "language" would develop in the given situation.
However, is there a threshold for *how much* linguistic input would be
needed to spur the creation of a language?
        In other words, what's the minimum amount of material needed to
make that supposed "language acquisition device" happy?  It's been
pretty well established that there is a critical period for learning
language, but is there also a critical mass (so to speak) of linguistic
input?

Curious,
Adam
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             myth@inquo.net |
http://www.inquo.net/~myth/ |
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