PSY274H5 Chapter Notes - Chapter 6: Common Bottlenose Dolphin, Bonobo, Wiki
Document Summary
A grammar is a collection of rules that describes a language: a grammar is a definitional part of what makes something a language. We have the ability to acquire language without any formal instruction. Its innateness is another definitional part of language (first language acquisition) The ability to refer to things that are not physically present (objects here, and times) is known as displacement. Both displacement and the ability to refer to abstractions are common to all human language. Under normal conditions, humans associate meaning with words and sentences and show this by reacting in ways that there are typically neither random nor simple reflexes. These six are enough to help us determine whether the following instances of animal behavior are evidence of language of the type found among humans. Research on animal language has included the study of bees, birds, sea mammals, and various primates.
