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From: merrill@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Why can't my cat talk?
Message-ID: <12400008@iuvax>
Date: Thu, 29-Oct-87 20:45:00 EST
Article-I.D.: iuvax.12400008
Posted: Thu Oct 29 20:45:00 1987
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Organization: Indiana University CSCI, Bloomington
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Nf-From: iuvax.cs.indiana.edu!merrill    Oct 29 20:45:00 1987


/* Written 12:08 am  Oct 29, 1987 by wcalvin@well in iuvax:comp.ai */

[...a small segment of one of my recent postings...]

What's special about human language beyond primate language isn't the
mellifluorus quality of our sounds -- it is our ability to string together
individual sounds (phonemes, etc.) into a meaningful order.  Human left
brains are specialized for handling sequencing problems like hand movements,
and that has probably made left brain a natural home for our word-order-ruled
language.

[...]

/* End of text from iuvax:comp.ai */

I fear that you, like many readers, missed the point of my posting
entirely.  I was not arguing that the reason humans were special was
any one thing, but rather that there were reasons to believe that
humans were special.  I didn't say that the position of the velum was
the only, or, indeed, the primary adaptation of the human race to
speak, but rather that it was *a critical* adaptation *to speak*.

The writers who have pointed out that apes can learn to generate novel
sentences in sign language have a good point.  But those apes acquired
only a small vocabulary (a few hundred signs.)  Even a human with a
few months experience with language has a vocabulary far in excess of
what chimps acquire with many years of intensive coaching.  Looked at
in this light, the experiments with Lucy provide even stronger
evidence for what I intended to argue in my previous posting:  your
cat can't talk because it isn't human.  And there's something special
about humans.