Some Design Features of Human Language
Based on a list by linguist Charles Hockett in early 1950s
to differentiate human language from animal communication systems.
(by
R. Port, Jan 14, 2002)
Language Structure
1. Duality of patterning.
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Utterances are a series of words or morphemes.
There is a fairly fixed list of them.
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Words or morphemes are a series of consonant and
vowel sounds (at least most of them are). There
is a fairly fixed list of them.
2. Always spoken -- using vocal tract and ears.
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But only some have a written form
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True sign languages are created only by the sensorily impaired
3. Arbitrary sound-meaning correspondences
Words typically have no apriori connection to their meaning.
But a small part of the vocabulary may iconically imitate
environmental events (onomotopoeia).
Language Content
4. Displacement in time.
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We can talk about what happened yesterday or 1000 years ago,
or what might happen 1000 years from now.
5. Stimulus freedom.
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Animals cannot fail to signal whatever motivates a signal.
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Humans can simply not comment on something they see,
and
they can tell lies.
6. Open-endedness and productivity.
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Humans can say completely novel things, never said before.