Yeah, language is an added analytical layer on top of our thoughts. We are clearly able to have thoughts without language (feral children for example are able to process their environment, plan and predict). But language adds a formality to it. Not to challenge Chomsky on his own turf but I don’t see how this can be separated from communication, since communication is how we acquire language. Does he really posit that even a feral child will have its own internal set of mouth sounds for organizing thoughts, even when it never speaks those to anyone? Seems backwards.
Chomsky’s concept of UG (universal grammar) is able to handle this. Since there would be a chunk of language that is innate (universal), that feral child would share it. So, as a conclusion from that, even if the feral child isn’t expressing it through vocalisation, since they lack an “application” of the UG (like Nahuatl, Mandarin, Quechua, English, Kikongo etc.), they’d still have some rather simple internal monologue.
…that said I think that Chomsky’s UG is full of shit. I do agree with him that the faculty of language might have developed first to structure thought; but my reasoning resembles a bit more yours, the role of language would be to formalise thought. Thinking without language is possible in the same way as moving across a village without roads - it’s doable but clunky, and you’ll likely take far more effort than with proper roads/ a language.
Not to challenge Chomsky on his own turf
Don’t worry. Everyone and their dog challenges him. Including himself, he’s often contradicting his own earlier statements.
I would say we all have thoughts without language with varying levels of frequency, think about moments where you or others have said “ah i know what I want to say but forgot the word”
What do you think evolved first - verbal communication or thoughts? Presumably we were able to think before we could speak, no? The words we have in our language are like pointers to internal concepts, and it seems to me that those internal concepts would have existed before language was a thing. The mouth-sounds as you put it are not the thoughts themselves, rather just labels for specific concepts. It might be possible and even convenient to think in mouth-sounds but it’s not necessary for logical thought.
Yeah, language is an added analytical layer on top of our thoughts. We are clearly able to have thoughts without language (feral children for example are able to process their environment, plan and predict). But language adds a formality to it. Not to challenge Chomsky on his own turf but I don’t see how this can be separated from communication, since communication is how we acquire language. Does he really posit that even a feral child will have its own internal set of mouth sounds for organizing thoughts, even when it never speaks those to anyone? Seems backwards.
Chomsky’s concept of UG (universal grammar) is able to handle this. Since there would be a chunk of language that is innate (universal), that feral child would share it. So, as a conclusion from that, even if the feral child isn’t expressing it through vocalisation, since they lack an “application” of the UG (like Nahuatl, Mandarin, Quechua, English, Kikongo etc.), they’d still have some rather simple internal monologue.
…that said I think that Chomsky’s UG is full of shit. I do agree with him that the faculty of language might have developed first to structure thought; but my reasoning resembles a bit more yours, the role of language would be to formalise thought. Thinking without language is possible in the same way as moving across a village without roads - it’s doable but clunky, and you’ll likely take far more effort than with proper roads/ a language.
Don’t worry. Everyone and their dog challenges him. Including himself, he’s often contradicting his own earlier statements.
I would say we all have thoughts without language with varying levels of frequency, think about moments where you or others have said “ah i know what I want to say but forgot the word”
What do you think evolved first - verbal communication or thoughts? Presumably we were able to think before we could speak, no? The words we have in our language are like pointers to internal concepts, and it seems to me that those internal concepts would have existed before language was a thing. The mouth-sounds as you put it are not the thoughts themselves, rather just labels for specific concepts. It might be possible and even convenient to think in mouth-sounds but it’s not necessary for logical thought.