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Re: THEORY: Question about the evolution of language

From:Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...>
Date:Monday, September 6, 1999, 23:24
Hese Kiel wrote:
> Lots of stuff universal of all languages become propably from this > behaviour.
I imagine this (admittedly unethical) experiment: An extremely wealthy linguist gathers together hundreds of extremely young infants [ideally newborns], whom he gives to the care of mute parents (who don't use any form of communication, either signed or spoken). They are placed on a distant island, no contact whatsoever. He then has hundreds of cameras around the island to observe the children, and observe how they create language. Even better, he has a few dozen such islands. I wonder what kind of language would evolve. My guess, if spoken: CV syllables (children prefer those) SVO or perhaps SOV Small vocabulary Many compounds Isolating? -- "If all Printers were determin'd not to print any thing till they were sure it would offend no body, there would be very little printed" - Benjamin Franklin http://members.tripod.com/~Nik_Taylor/X-Files/ http://members.tripod.com/~Nik_Taylor/Books.html ICQ #: 18656696 AIM screen-name: NikTailor