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Home , Lera Boroditsky, Linguistic determinism, Linguistic relativity, Mass noun

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Pomona College LCS 11: Linguistic relativity GQ # 4.3 discussions Pirahã and exact cardinality Jesse A. Harris April 13, 2013

Jesse A. Harris: LCS 11: Cognitive Science, Linguistic relativity 1 Jesse A. Harris: LCS 11: Cognitive Science, Linguistic relativity 2

Does shape thought? Linguistic What . . . are you crazy? Consensus view in modern : Mapping between is universal – variations are largely arbitrary.

Yes, totally “To have a second language is to : The language of an individual have a second soul.” determines how that individual thinks about the world.

Yes, kind of Linguistic relativity: The language of an indivudal inWuences, Charlemagne (742–814) but does not wholly determine, an individual’s thoughts. Holy Roman Emperor

Jesse A. Harris: LCS 11: Cognitive Science, Linguistic relativity 3 Jesse A. Harris: LCS 11: Cognitive Science, Linguistic relativity 4 Sapir Whorf hypothesis Linguistic determinism “We dissect nature along lines laid down by our native language.”

“The limits of my language mean the ∼Whorf limits of my world.” I Somewhat misleading: Sapir and (Actually intended to determine the Whorf never jointly proposed the idea. (1884–1939)

boundaries of philosophical thought; I Yet, variants can be found in both Wittgenstein later abandoned this authors’ writings, to diUering project.) extremes.

I Seemingly presupposes that thought is dependent (or even reducible) to a (1889–1951) kind of internal language. Benjamin Whorf (1897–1941) Jesse A. Harris: LCS 11: Cognitive Science, Linguistic relativity 5

Substance

WhoVan. Eskimos are greatly inWuenced by their language in their of snow. For example, they (1) a. Two pens have N words for snow [N varies widely – see b. # Much pen Pullum], whereas English only has one, snow. Having all these diUerent words makes them Count think of snow very diUerently than, say, Americans do. Skeptic. How do you know they think of snow diUerently? WhorVan. Look at all the words they have for it! N of them! (2) a. # Two dirts Parody from Greg Murphy (1996), cited in Bloom & Keil b. Much dirt (2001)

Mass noun

Jesse A. Harris: LCS 11: Cognitive Science, Linguistic relativity 7 Substance Substance

(3) a. Two waters b. Much water ClassiVers Yucatec Mayan refer to substances and receive a numerical classiVer for shape (Wat, oblong, round, people) when noun is in a counting context.

Mass noun

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Lucy and Gaskins (2001)

“These Vndings suggest that aspect of grammar can in fact shape the way speakers of a language conceptualize the shapes and materials of objects.”

Initial item Shape condition Substance Open question What do you think? Is this English More likely to compare in terms of shape. conclusion warranted? Mayan More likely to compare in terms of material.

Jesse A. Harris: LCS 11: Cognitive Science, Linguistic relativity 11 “These Vndings once again indicate that people’s thinking about objects is inWuenced by the grammatical genders thier native language assigns encode items with grammatical gender: masculine, to the objects’ names. It appears that feminine, neutral. Largely arbitrary. even a small Wuke of grammar (the seemingly arbitrary assignment of a German hard, heavy, jagged, noun to be masculine or feminine) metal, serrated, useful can have an eUect on how people think about thinkgs in the world.” Spanish golden, intricate, little lovely, shiny and tiny Lera Boroditsky Open question What do you think? Is this conclusion warranted? Lera Boroditsky

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Boas Jakobson Principle GQ # 4.2

For many deep contrasts, there is, in fact, a continuum of possible values. The case of linguistic relativity is no diUerent. On one extreme, we might argue that our language completely “If diUerent languages inWuence their determines our thought and world-view. On the other extreme, we might argue that language and thought are entirely speakers’ minds in varying ways, this independent. Frank et al (2008) oUer a nice compromise between is not because of what each language the two views. First, brieWy summarize their position with allows people to think but rather (1858–1942) respect to how language impacts the use of exact numbers. because of the kinds of Second, do you think that the case of verbal in Matses, as discussed at the end of chapter 6 of Deutscher, shows each language habitually obliges something similar, but in a diUerent matter? Or is the people to think about.” (Deutscher, Matses case entirely diUerent? Why or why not? (This answer is 2011) open ended, so just oUer a short, simple position.) Group leaders: Orren, Devon, Tatiana, Alex, Natasha, Sarah, Lea Lynn, Noah, Cole Roman Jakobson (1896–1982) 820 M.C. Frank et al. / 108 (2008) 819–824 that there is no morphological route for repre- 2.1. Participants and methods senting the distinction between ‘‘one” and ‘‘many” in Pir- ahã (Everett, 2005). Gordon additionally found that Six adult Pirahã speakers participated in the increasing across a variety of different tasks requiring judgments of elicitation condition and four participated in the decreas- the Pirahã produced errors which grew larger sys- ing elicitation condition. To elicit descriptions of tematically as quantities increased, indicating that they in the Pirahã language, we presented sets of spools of were probably using a strategy of approximate magnitude thread to our participants. In the increasing elicitation con- estimation, rather than representing numbers exactly. One dition, we started with one spool and added spools one by particular result was especially surprising: The Pirahã one until there were 10 spools of thread. For each quantity, made errors on a simple one-to-onePirahã matching task. In the we asked the question ‘‘how much/many is this?” (trans- Pirahã other matching tasks, the Pirahã might have understood lated into Pirahã by D.E.). In the decreasing elicitation con- what was required but been unable to perform the tasks dition, we started with 10 spools and took spools away one accurately; this conclusion would lead to the inference that by one until there was only one spool remaining. The number is necessary for remembering large experiment was run with participants that had completed numbers accurately. However, given its lack of auxiliary the matching tasks in Experiment 2 immediately before- “My own view then is that the case cognitive demands, the failures of theI Language Pirahã in the in one- Brazilianhand, Amazon thus the participants were aware that we were par- of Pirahã illustrates, perhaps as well to-one matching task also suggested a(N potentially = 300-350) deeper, ticularly interested in the size of sets. as any example ever discussed in the strong Whorfian claim: That without number words, hu- man beings represent only approximateI Hunting-gathering quantities, and 2.2. tribe Results and discussion literature, the kind of bi-directional that only by learning number words can humans create causal relationship between language the of exact quantity: The ideaI thatConstrained adding or sub- productivityOn every trial, participants produced one of the three tracting even a single individual from a set1. will Only change 3 pronounsthe words hói, hoí, and baágiso. The proportion of each word and culture that Boas and Sapir quantity of that . produced for each number in the two conditions is shown would have expected us to Vnd.“ Here we investigate these two claims:2. A The relative weaker countingin Fig. system 1. In the increasing elicitation, hói was universally claim, that language for number allows accurate3. Arguably, memory no subordination,used to describe one , hoí was used to describe two for – and hence operations over – sets withno exact recursion cardi- or more objects, and baágiso was used to describe quanti- nalities; and the stronger claim, that language for num- ties of three or more. These data were consistent with http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/∼myl/languagelog/archives/001387.html ber creates the concept of exact quantity (Gelman & meanings of ‘‘one,” ‘‘roughly two,” and ‘‘many” for the Gallistel, 2004; Gordon, 2004). Building on the work of three words. However, in the decreasing elicitation, hói Gordon (2004), we investigate both the number language was used to refer to quantities as large as six, hoí was used (Experiment 1) and numerical abilities (Experiment 2) of for quantities between 4 and 10, and baágiso was used for the Pirahã. Consistent with previous reports, we find that quantities between 7 and 10. Across the two tasks, none of the Pirahã truly have no linguisticJesse A. Harris: method LCS 11: of Cognitive expressing Science, Linguisticthe relativity three words that the Pirahã produced were used con- 17 Jesse A. Harris: LCS 11: Cognitive Science, Linguistic relativity 18 any exact quantity, even ‘‘one.” However, despite this sistently to refer to any particular quantity across the lack, they are able to perform exact matching tasks with two tasks. Because each of the three words was used for large numbers of objects when these tasks do not require a dramatically different range of values in the ascending memory. These results militate against the strong Whorf- and the descending elicitations, these words are much ian claim that learning number words creates the con- more likely to be relative or comparative terms like ‘‘few” cept of exact quantity. Instead, they suggest a view of or ‘‘fewer” than absolute terms like ‘‘one” or even proto- number words as a cognitive technology, a tool for creat- numbers (numerals with approximate quantities, like ing mental representations ofPirahã the exact cardinalities of ‘‘roughly one,” as suggested in Gordon, 2004). A proto- Pirahã sets, representations that can be remembered and com- municated accurately across time, space, and changes in modality. The lack of linguistic terms for exact quantity did not aUect 2. Experiment 1: elicitation the Piraha’s performance on analog matching tasks, only Gordon (2004) described the PirahãRelative language numbers as having those that required remembering larger cardinalities. a numerical vocabulary corresponding to the terms ‘‘one” (hói), ‘‘two” (hoí), and ‘‘many” (baagisohói, though hefew reports I Language plays a “compressive role” allowing eXcient the variant aibaagi). He also noted that these terms do not have exact meanings, thus hói mayhoí mean ‘‘roughly fewer one” encoding or ‘‘small.” Everett has suggested,baagiso however, that many there are Able to use verbally mediated memory system to encode no numerals in the language whatsoever and that these I words instead indicate ‘‘small size or amount,” ‘‘somewhat and retrieve these items more eXciently. larger size or amount,” and ‘‘cause to come together/many” (Everett, 2005). To test these claims and establish whether Pirahã contains any absolute number terms, we simply Fig. 1. Proportion of Pirahã speakers using each of the three proposed asked Pirahã speakers to describe varying quantities of ob- quantity words in Pirahã. Sets with different quantities were presented in jects (roughly following the design in Pica et al., 2004). increasing order and participants were asked to describe their quantity.

Jesse A. Harris: LCS 11: Cognitive Science, Linguistic relativity 19 Jesse A. Harris: LCS 11: Cognitive Science, Linguistic relativity 20 Evidentiality Evidentiality Evidentiality Marking the source of knowledge via linguistic means. Discussion question I About a quarter of the world’s languages exhibit some grammatical markers of evidentiality: Matses, Croatian, How do languages with evidentiality compare with languages Salish, Eastern Pomo, Navajo, Korean, etc. with diUerent linguistic expressions of time? Do they reveal anything in particular about the plausibility of linguistic I Types of evidentiality vary across languages: direct evidence, indirect, through reason, hearsay, from an determinism? How about a weakened version of linguistic authority, from well-known lore, etc. relativity?

I Ways of expressing evidentiality varies as well: clitics, or mood classes, limited to types of connectives, full verbal paradigms, etc.

Jesse A. Harris: LCS 11: Cognitive Science, Linguistic relativity 21 Jesse A. Harris: LCS 11: Cognitive Science, Linguistic relativity 22

Reading: Sacks, 2010 chapter Writing response due April 19 (moved back 2 days) any time. Begin unit on vision (HoUman, 2000) next Wednesday.

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