Posted: Nov 27, 2010 1:12 am
katja z wrote:Mr. Samsa, what you say about the critical period for the chimpanzee is intriguing. I wonder how developped is the chimp brain at birth compared to the human brain, and if any differences there are could be related to how much language they can pick up. As far as phonology is concerned, I've read how in babies the brain not just programmes but "hardwires" itself somewhat differently depending on the language they hear around them, not developing new neural connections but pruning the existing ones to retain only those needed for the recognition of phonemes of the language of their environment (that's why it can be so damn hard to learn to correctly pronounce a foreign language as an adult). I'm wondering if something like this happens for other aspects of language during the critical period, so that linguistic environment is instrumental in putting the final touches to brain development? (Maybe a silly question, but I don't know much about brain other than that I have one.)
Yeah phonemes are very interesting, but I haven't read up on other aspects of language in this respect. It's an interesting question though and I wonder if there are sort of "grammar-like phonemes" where it's easier to pick up the grammar of what you grow up with and it's harder to understand other grammar structures. I imagine this would be more flexible though as grammars are a bit more widespread aren't they? As in, similar languages from related backgrounds will probably share a lot of the main grammatical aspects right?
I imagine that the McGurk effect would have something to do with what we learn during this time too.