Discussion Details
| Title: | Mundurucu and Piraha counting |
| Submitter: | Daniel Everett |
| Description: | Re: Linguist 15.3085 (http://linguistlist.org/issues/15/15-3085.html)
In his report on his Science article on Mundurucu counting, Pierre Pica makes the strange comment that the research on Mundurucu ''...casts doubt on Dan Everett's proposal that culture is the determining factor in language design and more precisely in the availability of words for counting.'' This is strange for a couple of reasons. First, he has done no research at all on Piraha. If it is thought that because the Mundurucu people live near the Piraha that the Mundurucu results can be extended to Piraha, this is like saying that V to C movement in German undermines claims that there is no such movement in French, say. After all, German is spoken in the same region, is it not? It is also strange because Piraha has NO number words at all, period, whereas Mundurucu does have number words and a system of tallying (which Piraha also lacks). Finally it is strange because I never claim that 'culture is the determining factor in language design'. The reason I do not claim that is because I do not believe that there is a 'determining factor' in language design. There are many and their interaction in subtle and important ways is what we need to be researching. Pica cites the work in Science by Gelman and Gallistel. After reading that article, I think it makes a good deal of sense and see nothing in it or its suggestions that contradict my own research (still only available on the web, via my website below). Again: the fact that your research shows that an analysis in Language A is different from an analysis in Language B cannot be taken to have 'cast doubt on' the analysis of Language B, especially when the only connection between them is that they are 'only' separated by about 1000 miles of Amazon rain forest. Daniel L. Everett Professor of Phonetics & Phonology Linguistics and English Language University of Manchester Manchester M13 9PL UK http://ling.man.ac.uk/info/staff/DE/DEHome.html |
| Date Posted: | 03-Nov-2004 |
| Linguistic Field(s): |
Language Documentation
Cognitive Science |
| LL Issue: | 15.3096 |
| Posted: | 03-Nov-2004 |
