Comments on: Finches Tweet With Grammar and Scold Those That Don't

By: julie

julie — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 08:03:11 +0000

Perhaps it wasn’t the word order the finches were responding to, but the word meaning! Perhaps with the syllables rearranged as they were in SEQ2, the tweet’s over-all meaning was changed to something, whatever it was, that outraged the birds.

By: Mab

Mab — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 02:43:45 +0000

@ Robert E: Your incorrect use of apostrophes comes from thirty plus years of… What exactly?

By: LVGreen

LVGreen — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 15:16:48 +0000

Finches tweet with grammar; yet humans are still trying to accomplish tweeting with grammar.

I have a difficult time understanding why some people are averse to the whole, “humans are ‘animals’” trope, while others all to gleefully exalt instances where humans are NOT unique.

Perhaps “organisms” should help alleviate any of the negativeness associated with being an animal. And if we know of three organisms out of tens of millions that can communicate with syntax, that is still doggone UNIQUE in my book.

By: Pippa

Pippa — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 10:08:52 +0000

Thank you Thurston.
I’d still like to know how Dr. Preston, came to his conclusions, Robert. After all most of us wouldn’t know that he is a linguist from his post, and 30+ years of experience still doesn’t preclude the need to support any arguments. On the contrary, it should prepare him to do this well! I would be interested to hear what he has to say.
My bias is that I am a child psychiatrist who works with autistic children – children who have fundamental problems with communication in all aspects, not only language. I work closely with speech language pathologists and have needed to learn about the way in which language is acquired, so any evolutionary or neurologically based approach to language is interesting to me.

By: Thurston

Thurston — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 14:26:38 +0000

Yet, why would Dr. Preston troll a blog without offering a small nugget of wisdom to elaborate why he believes what he believes?

By: Robert E

Robert E — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 13:28:57 +0000

@Pippa — Dr. Preston’s criticism’s come from his 30+ years as a linguist.

By: Pippa

Pippa — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 09:20:26 +0000

Dennis, it is easy to criticize – but more detail is needed for us to sort out if your criticism is valid. This strikes me as a good start to examining the question of whether other animals have a structure, grammar, within their communication. Is your problem maybe that it is easier to feel superior and unique than to accept we are after all, as Michael says, animals? Without a more detailed argument, again, it’s hard to tell and I’d hate to jump to conclusions.

By: Dennis Preston

Dennis Preston — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 21:40:37 +0000

Yet more misunderstandings of the characteristics of human language syntax; this time by researchers who may know a lot about birds but little about linguistics.

By: Michael Berry

Michael Berry — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 20:30:31 +0000

We’re animals, like all the rest. Highly intelligent animals, but animals nonetheless.

By: Crow

Crow — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 19:32:31 +0000

Yet another piece of the tapestry that shows how very non-unique we humans really are.