Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-t5tsf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-14T21:26:47.859Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The problematic transition from specific competences to general competence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 August 2003

James R. Hurford
Affiliation:
School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK [email protected] http://www.ling.ed.ac.uk/~jim/ [email protected]
Jean-Louis Dessalles
Affiliation:
Groupe : Information, Interaction, Intelligence : I3 Ecole Normale Supérieure des Télécommunications, Paris, France http://www.enst.fr/~jld

Abstract

Postulating a variety of mutually isolated thought domains for prelinguistic creatures is both unparsimonious and implausible, requiring unexplained parallel evolution of each separate module. Furthermore, the proposal that domain-general concepts are not accessible without prior exposure to phonetically realized human language utterances cannot be implemented by any concept-acquisition mechanism.

Type
Brief Report
Copyright
© 2002 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)