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The Case of Curry Part II

Continuing yesterday's thought. Imagine somebody DID make an argument for an innate culinary faculty that enables our learning what is or isn't curry. This somebody would likely be making four mistakes:


  1. he'd probably be underestimating the amount of "negative evidence" around for an empirical inquiry into what is and isn't curry;
  2. and might be idealizing culinary learning as if it were instantaneous, whereas actual culinary learning is gradual and piecemeal;
  3. and is probabilistic, not a realm of certainties;
  4. and, finally, he may be assuming that there is an endpoint where we all agree about what is curry, whereas in fact there will always be room for disagreements. 
Image result for Tappan Zee Bridge

The second of these sounds odd, and those not familiar with these debates might not know to what she is making reference. But Chomsky has said, in his KNOWLEDGE OF LANGUAGE (1986), that in understanding language we can presume that the "order of presentation of data is irrelevant so that learning is 'as if it were instantaneous.'"  

If we accept the analogy with Curry learning, though, we can see the problem. The order of the presentation of the data may be very relevant in my developing conception of curry. If my first dish of curry is relatively bland, it may take me a while to understand that other curry connoisseurs consider the heat of the dish to be of its essence. 

Likewise, language is a complicated developmental fact, and the home in which one grows up has a good deal to do with what one comes to understand of language. The is not Cowie's example but I'll offer my own. I began to learn speech in the Hudson Valley, within sight of the old Tappan Zee bridge (pictured above). During this process my parents moved our household north and east into New England. My younger siblings ended up speaking like stereotypical New Englanders to a degree that has never been true of my  older brother or myself.

You will say, "regional accents are trivial and besides the point. The issues involve grammar and syntax."   It is fair to say it is  trivial example, but it will work as well as others to illustrate the substantive point.  Cowie quotes a student of the development of language skills saying that during the second and third years of life "the child seems to be proceeding in a bottom-up fashion, acquiring the language system brick by brick." And that IS the point, for bottom-up learning is exactly what one would expect were learning of language NOT innate, but acquired through our general cognitive abilities applied to the relevant circumstances. 

I'll lay Cowie aside for now, and come back to her perhaps next week for some concluding observations on all this. 
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