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Apprentice comments on Academic Cliques - Less Wrong
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The question is whether the variety in human languages is constrained by our biology or by general structural issues which any intelligence which developed a communication system would come up against. This should have implications for cognitive science and maybe AI design.
Note that the anti-Chomskyans are not biology-denying blank-slaters. Geoffrey Sampson, who has written a good book about this, is a racist reactionary.
Ah! Yes, OK, that makes sense. Thanks for clarifying.
I don't have a horse in this race, but I studied linguistics as an undergrad in the 80s so am probably an unexamined Chomskyist by default. That said, I certainly agree that if such general structural constraints exist (which is certainly plausible) then we ought to identify and study them, not just assume them away.
Is there a language that doesn't have any kind of discrete words and concepts? 'cause I'm pretty sure there are possible intelligences that could construct a communication system that uses only approximate quantitative representations (configuration spaces or replaying full sensory) instead of symbols.