The Anatomy of Chomsky's Biolinguistic Minimalism: A tutorial by Epstein and Seely (2/6)

2. Babies, cats and rock, same or different?

Mayr's Dual Causation: "...In contrast to purely physical processes,...biological ones are controlled not only by natural laws but also by genetic programs. This duality fully provides a clear-demarcation between inanimate and living processes".

If we compare a cat with a human we can find a main difference: The humans can speak some language and the cats can not. Seely Epstein says: " The baby is borned with the capacity to develop a linguistic system". Who can investigate this question?

The language is a property of the humans.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• biolinguistics
• noam chomsky
• minimalism
• the minimalist program
• syntax
• generative syntax
• samuel david epstein
• daniel seely
• biology of language
• evolution
• cognitive sciences