From: oneil@husc10.harvard.edu (John O'Neil)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Animal Grammar
Date: 14 Apr 92 07:54:31 GMT
Article-I.D.: husc10.ONEIL.92Apr14005431
Organization: Harvard Arts and Sciences Computer Services, Cambridge, MA
In-reply-to: rhh@alice.att.com's message of 13 Apr 92 12:14:08 GMT

In article <22559@alice.att.com> rhh@alice.att.com (r hardin) writes:
   In article <ONEIL.92Apr13001646@husc10.harvard.edu>, oneil@husc10.harvard.edu (John O'Neil) writes:
   > In article <22546@alice.att.com> rhh@alice.att.com (r hardin) writes:
   > 
   >    My Doberman knows over a hundred words
   >
   >    [...]
   >
   >    Incidentally, I don't test her vocabulary, or set up tricks. So she's
   >    quite motivated to listen, it's always about something interesting.
   > 
   > Have you ever heard of "Clever Hans", by any chance?

   Why yes, I have!  The horse who could answer any question, but only,
   it turned out, if he could see the questioner!

Wrong!  Clever Hans could answer the question only if he could see
*his owner*.  The questions were about simple arithmetic -- not only
could Clever Hans understand German (I think it was German) but he
could also do math!

Clever Hans failed to answer correctly under two circumstances: either
when the owner was out of sight, or when the owner didn't know the
answer himself (i.e. "What's the square root of nine?")

   He could always find out the answer, no matter how still and impassive
   the questioner tried to remain.

Not any questioner -- just his owner.  In a sense, it isn't
surprising; that guy had been the center of Clever Hans' universe for
the horse's entire life, and horses are not dumb (with a few
unfortunate exceptions).  Of course Clever Hans would try to determine
what his owner was thinking and do it.

   So it's the fallacy of supposing that the animal is really understanding
   when it is really reading body language.  It also shows the believer as
   credulous or stupid, does it not?  If I understand your communication.

Credulity is in the eye of the beholder.  Clever Hans' owner wasn't an
expert in reading his own body language -- possibly because he didn't
need to rely on it, having a somewhat better form of daily
communication at his disposal.  So he simply didn't recognize the
possibility that Clever Hans could be getting the correct answer by
cheating :)

   Another response might be, isn't that interesting, that the humans
   couldn't conceal from Hans what would count as a correct answer.

Every other human *could* conceal the answer from Clever Hans -- only
his owner couldn't.

   Some people do find it interesting.

I, too, find it interesting -- just not *linguistically* interesting.

   I posted what seemed to me to be relevant to grammar, that Susie
   seems to parse, to find a boundary between two things, when I
   change one of them but not the other.

Anecdotal evidence about your favorite pet is not exactly the hard
data expected on the sci. hierarchy.  However, there's no reason to
flame you for that -- messages with far less content (e.g. mine) are
posted regularly :)

At least you weren't the monthly Tolkein announcement.

   This done under normal conditions.  If you wanted to test it, you'd
   have to consider first of all what effect doing a test has on the
   communication, if an animal can read minute changes in breathing
   and so forth, and might well detect that it's being toyed with.

That's the problem with science -- it's so damn intrusive!

   Scientists are so amusing.

Indeed they are.  So are people who think that their pets understand
language.  Unfortunately, there seem to be millions of them.

Seriously: I don't know you *or* your pet.  I am in no position to
make any sort of judgement concerning either of your linguistic
capabilities; until we can test it (which you seem disinclined to do),
I will remain very sceptical.
--
John O'Neil
"Occasionally I believed I had thoughts of my own --  who does not now
 and then become the victim of such delusions?"
						-- Paul Feyerabend