Grammar is another name for value creation
MindMatters tries to separate out human language from animal communication:

Believers in human non-exclusivity do not appear to be especially picky about what counts as evidence for their views. For example, here’s a research finding that is supposed to be evidence that birds use grammar:

For a long time, scientists were convinced that animal communication lacked any sentence structure. But in 2016, Japanese researchers published a study in Nature Communications on the vocalizations of great tits. In certain situations, the birds combine two different calls to warn each other when a predator approaches. They also reacted when the researchers played this sequence to them. However, when the call order was reversed, the birds reacted far less. “That’s grammar,” says Brensing.

No. That isn’t grammar. The birds just didn’t understand the wrong-sequence call. By the way, how did we get so fast in the same story from whales to birds? Is that for lack of evidence for grammar among whales and any related species?

Correct on the birdcalls. That's music, not grammar. You could call it vocabulary, but it's still not grammar. A different sequence of notes (pure sines) is a different word, just as a different sequence of phonemes (harmonies) is a different word. Exactly the same mechanism.

People who WORK with animals tend to have the best and most detailed communication with them. Before motorcars, most people knew how to talk with horses.

The trainers at Seaworld, before they were fired by Die-Versity and Animal "Rights", knew how to communicate with dolphins and orcas. Legends say that some sailors and fishermen also knew how to collaborate with dolphins.

The key point is WORK. Animals with a social sense of duty and morality, and a need to be useful, can collaborate with humans.

Grammar arises from work and duty. Without UTILITY there is no grammar.

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Languages vary hugely, but there are some fairly distinct asymptotes or pivot points. In syntax and noun forms, the asymptote is NGDA. Nominative, genitive, dative, accusative. Many languages have inflections to denote other relationships between an object and the world, but as a language develops it tends to simplify down to NGDA and stay there. Even after the case endings dissolve or merge, NGDA still remains firmly marked in word order.

Why is NGDA optimal? It describes the basic relationships in any social structure, whether we're talking about dogs or humans or bees. When you have NGDA you have a society and vice versa.



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Nominative is the worker. Genitive is the ownership of the material being worked on. Dative is the customer who receives the work. Accusative is the product being worked on. Instrumental is skills and tools.

Verb forms are equally obvious. Imperative is the command to start work. Present is a report on what I'm doing right now. Past is the finished timecard or worklog. Future is a promise to work on the next item, or seeds saved for next season. Reflexive is work done for myself, practicing skills toward the next exchange of value.

Without work and duty and usefulness, there's no REASON for any of these forms. Without two-way obligations there's no need for promises and commands and reports.

Labels: defensible cases, Equipoise, skill-estate

  ¶ 7:08 AM