Greg Detre
15/11/00
external rater rated the movements of the animal
Kanzi listening to a blind researcher on headphones
we have to judge him on his comprehension not production
harder to be objective about his productions
Kanzi � most exciting + controlled of the experiments
to an observer, human language might seem to be a bit random/ant-like
what is it that we don't want animal to have about language
HOT + self-consciousness, spontaneous comments
thoughts as emergent properties of language, but human language
want to prove that apes don't have the generative aspects of syntax and language by showing that they can't master English
we aren't examining purely the linguistic aspects of an ape, but really the human-language-learning ability
Kanzi�s keyboard is not his first language, spoken is
and vice versa for language
but Kanzi is like a dumb child (severely impaired) since he cannot produce spoken responses
Alea�s vocalisations were scored
what about Kanzi syntax in 3-word occurrences?
example errors
neither could distinguish in/on
Kanzi couldn't distinguish �paint� + �clay�
ball on � same chance as � on ball � couldn't seem to use syntax to determine exact meaning � both Kanzi + alex
Kanzi ate one of the stimuli, Alea did this 4 times
sometimes either of them played with an item or refused to
�water on the carrot� � threw it outside in the rain
Alea was poorer are moving around on her own (confidence?)
memory limits your contextual your contextual scientif.(???)
Kanzi definitely seems to understand, but he can't really grasp syntax, I don�t think
Simon Berg - criticisms
compare Kanzi with a dumb child??? deprived of the ability to rehearse
and even if you gave Kanzi a speaking keyboard, so he could sort of respond with speech, he�d lose any cues you get from using different intonation (and watching people�s responses to your tones), and especially if the motor theory of speech perception is true
how different could language be??? are even the key linguistic universals too anthropocentric???
almost certainly, surely!
Kanzi pretty much definitely can't produce syntax � but can he appreciate understand differences in syntax???