10-1b7 Culture and grammar shape each other through their evolved symbiotic relationship

Grammar constrains what’s (easily) expressible.

• 10-2e0 Languages are theories. The vocabulary and grammar embody substantial assertions about the world.

• 10-2g4 Cultures and languages are reflexive

• 10-2g1f2a Our brains (including our emotions) and our cultures are related symbiotically through the individual, and that neither supervenes on the other

• 10-2f1 Chomsky’s UG approach only looks at a subset (syntax) of a subset (language) of the whole (communication system — ‘the gestalt’). Syntax is only secondary to conversation.

• 10-2d1d Humans are distinguished because of the syntax of their DNA (genomes)

• develop

• ’Grammar of society’develop

  • 10-1c1 ‘Grammar of society’ - Society and culture are connected and constructed in grammar-like ways. Individuals are ‘fillers’ for slots in a culture-grammar.

• Piraha

  • IMMEDIACY OF EXPERIENCE ⇒ No recursion
    • AN3C - Piraha doesn’t differentiate the future and the past
      • This has probably nothing to do with quantum physics
        • 1-2g1b1 Predicting the same outcome doesn’t mean they have the same explanation
        • 10-2f3a1 Speaking the same language doesn’t mean they share the same exact meanings.
        • 10-2g1f1 Natural selection can only operate on phenotypes (physical attributes) and not on genotypes (the knowledge bearing entity). The same (or similar) phenotypes doesn’t mean they share the same genotype.
  • Even the sound system is architectonically affected by culture

• Methodology for Studying the Culture-Grammar Interface

  • A suggested methodology for establishing culture-grammar connections
  • That Piraha is not a unique case and that 10-1b8 All languages will show culture-language connections if we look for it!
    • _It is hard to find such connections if we do not look for them!_
  • The biggest lacuna in the study of ethnogrammar
    • The effect of values, especially cultural taboos, in restricting both culture and grammar!
  • 10-1b9 Ethnogrammatical studies are to explain the linkage between nonlinguistic evidence and noncultural evidence
    • To explain how linking the two provides a conceptually and empirically superior account of the facts that leave them unconnected

1-2g1c3d Don’t judge a book by its cover. Read the whole context instead.