1. What was Psamtik's experiment? What did he hope to learn? Did he?
Psamtik was an Egyptian Pharaoh who was interested in language and its origins. his plan was to seperate two newborns and give them to two sheperds under the instructions that they should not speak to the children. this was to find what language is the language that first appeared. the childrens first word was Bekos, which is bread in phrygian.
2. Rymer claims on pg. 5 that "while his experiment was flawed in fulfilling its declared intention...it embodied both the theological questions and the practical quandaries that still bedevil the discipline." Where did Abel hint at this same concept?
abel hinted at the same concept when he was discussing the use of language.
3. Why do Linguistics and Astronomy "constitute an unlikely sisterhood"?
linguistics and astronomy are an unlikely sisterhood because both of these sciences are more observational than experimental which means that there arent any ways to run experiments to tests a hypothesis.
4. Why was the Social Worker concerned about the young girl that came to her Welfare Office with her mother?
the socila worker was concerned about genie because she was pale, malnourished, and could not speak at all. she showed evidence of physical abuse.
5. Consider the history of Linguistics outlined in Chapter 5. Please explain how the study of language grew from the religious to the biological and finally to the psychological.
No comments:
Post a Comment