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?
--
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sure it would offend no body, there would be very little printed" -
Benjamin Franklin
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