bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
A Note about Philosophy and History: The Place of Cassirer's Erkenntnisproblem
Authors: Krois John Michael
Published: September 2008

Although Cassirer's four-volume Das Erkenntnisproblem in der Philosophie und Wissenschaft der neueren Zeit has long been highly regarded as an example of historical scholarship — Cassirer was awarded the golden Kuno-Fischer Medal of the University of Heidelberg in July 1914 for the first two volumes (published 1906 and 1907) — its importance for understanding his theoretical position seems to have gone unrecognized. In the English-speaking world it is, unfortunately, only known through the fourth volume, and when this appeared in English in 1950 it met with a negative, even hostile, reception (see Passmore 1968, 315f.).
From the Introduction to the First Edition of The Problem of Knowledge in Modern Philosophy and Science
Authors: Cassirer Ernst
Published: September 2008

Modern thought would present only an incomplete and fragmentary picture of philosophy to us if we were to regard it as being completely disconnected from the elemental forces and sources of Greek philosophy. The corrective aspect that protects it from any such attempt at unmethodical isolation is, however, given within itself and in its own content. Its own inner progress necessarily leads it back to the principles and questions that distinguished Greek speculation, which it embodied in typical forms. The thought of the modern age proves its specificity in the fact that, notwithstanding the richness of content that it gains, it remains conscious of its relatedness to these basic logical forms and strives to return to them of its own accord. They will thus themselves appear to us of their own accord and incite us to regard their contents, if we just allow ourselves to follow the course of the investigation.
Albert Einstein as Pacifist and Democrat during World War I
Authors: Goenner Hubert , Castagnetti Giuseppe
Published: September 2008

The Argument

In this article we throw more light on Einstein's position as a pacifist and democrat during World War I than was possible up to now. This results from a systematical search for and evaluation of published and unpublished documents. Among others, it was possible to give evidence of Einstein's radicalization and to clear up the circumstances of his public appearance during the troublesome days of the Revolution in November 1918. Einstein's role in the Bund Neues Vaterland and other pacifist organizations and his interaction with other pacifists in Germany and abroad is exposed in detail and interpreted. In contrast to the generally accepted view, we give a reappraisal of Einstein's activity and show that his pacifism was always of a humanitarian nature. He only rarely applied social and political categories to the happenings during the war. Due to his main focus on physics Einstein's pacifism remained one more of creed than of deed.
Organisms-Mechanisms: Stahl, Wolff, and the Case against Reductionist Exclusion
Authors: Gierer Alfred
Published: September 2008

The Argument

Unlike Aristotelian physics with its Ideological notions, modern physics was developed exclusively in relation to the nonliving domain. This raised the question as to whether mechanics applies to organisms, and if so, to what extent. From the seventeenth century on, mechanistic ideas became prominent in biological and medical theory. Contemporary biology explains essential features of life on the basis of physical laws and processes. This does not prove, however, that the early mechanists were essentially right. In the eighteenth century, following Cartesian notions of mind-body separation and preformation theories of organismic development, they tended to exclude major biological questions rather than answering them. It was those who insisted on the organizational features of organisms, like Stahl and Wolff, who paved the way for solutions to such crucial problems as the psychological basis of human nature and behavior and the generation of form in the course of reproduction. Though they underrated the potentials of a future, extended physics for understanding biology, their case against reductionist exclusion should not be considered outdated even today.
Worlds in Collision: Owen and Huxley on the Brain
Authors: Smith C.U.M.
Published: September 2008

The Argument

This paper makes use of the 1860 clash between T. H. Huxley and Richard Owen to examine the role of social context in scientific advance in the biological sciences. It shows how the social context of nineteenth-century England first favored the Coleridge-Owenite interpretation of the biological world and then, at mid-century and subsequently, allowed the Darwin-Huxley interpretation to win through. It emphasizes the complexity of the clash. Professional, personal, and generational agendas as well as scientific theory and fundamental philosophical intuition were at stake. The history, ultimately, provides a useful instance of Schutz ‘s and Scheler ‘s concept of societal factors controlling and selecting between flows of idealfactoren. Although Huxley is conventionally regarded as the victor I conclude by suggesting that the issue is not yet closed and that profound philosophical issues remain unresolved.
The Establishment of the Mathematical Bookshelf of the Medieval Hebrew Scholar: Translations and Translators
Authors: LÉvy Tony
Published: September 2008

The Argument

The major part of the mathematical “classics” in Hebrew were translated from Arabic between the second third of the thirteenth century and the first third of the fourteenth century, within the northern littoral of the western Mediterranean. This movement occurred after the original works by Abraham bar Hiyya and Abraham ibn Ezra became available to a wide readership. The translations were intended for a restricted audience — the scholarly readership involved in and dealing with the theoretical sciences. In some cases the translators themselves were professional scientists (e.g., Jacob ben Makhir); in other cases they were, so to speak, professional translators, dealing as well with philosophy, medicine, and other works in Arabic.

In aketshing this portrait of the beginning of Herbrew scholarly mathematics, my aim has been to contribute to a better understanding of mathematical activity as such among Jewish communities during this period.
Science and theKuzari
Authors: Langermann Y. Tzvi
Published: September 2008

The Argument

Yehuda Halevi'sKuzariwas written in response to the challenge posed to Judaism by a highly spiritual, nondenominational philosophy. Science, especially that embodied in the Hellenistic heritage, was a major component of philosophy; thus, if for no other reason than to make Judaism a serious competitor, Halevi had to show that the Jewish tradition as well possessed a body of scientific knowledge. The superiority of the Jewish teachings was demonstrated chiefly by appeal to the criteria of tradition, consensus, and authority, which, in Halevi's judgement, were in practice the criteria most influential in deciding scientific opinion. Despite the rather unique setting for the book, and the wide range of stances Halevi develops, theKuzariwas rather quickly and smoothly absorbed into the mainstream of Jewish religious thought.
Rabbi Moshe Isserles and the Study of Science Among Polish Rabbis
Authors: Fishman David E.
Published: September 2008

Conventional wisdom has it that Ashkenazic rabbinic culture was far less receptive to non-Jewish learning and worldly disciplines than its Sephardic counterpart. Whereas great Sephardic rabbis such as Maimonides and many others were masters of philosophy, medicine, and science, Ashkenazic rabbis usually restricted their intellectual horizons to talmudic literature and, in the best of cases, “broadened” them to include the Bible and/or Kabbalah. Ashkenazic rabbinic culture was, according to this image, insular and unidimensional.
Ashkenazic Rationalism and Midrashic Natural History: Responses to the New Science in the Works of Rabbi Yom Tov Lipmann Heller (1578–1654)
Authors: Davis Joseph
Published: September 2008

The Argument

Between 1550 and 1650, the intellectual elite of Ashkenazic (German-and Yiddish-speaking) Jews, including rabbis such as Yom Tov Lipmann Heller (1578–1654), showed a marked interest in astronomy, and to a lesser degree in the natural sciences generally. This is one aspect of the assimilation of medieval Jewish rationalism by that group. Passages from Heller‘s writings show his familiarity with medieval and early modern Hebrew astronomical texts, and his belief that astronomy should be studied by all Jewish schoolboys. Heller‘s astronomical views were then influenced by the discoveries and debates of his period. Between 1614 and the 1630‘s, Heller moved from an Aristotelian to a Tychonic view of the nature of the celestial bodies. Inspired, furthermore, by the notion of a natural order subject to change, and basing himself on the exegesis of ancient rabbinic texts, Heller offered what we have termed” midrashic natural histories”: namely, a hypothesis concerning the development of a certain type of animal, and another concerning the dimming of the moon and its movement into a lower orbit.
On Defining a Jewish Stance toward Newtonianism: Eliakim ben Abraham Hart'sWars of the Lord
Authors: Ruderman David
Published: September 2008

The Argument

The article studies a small Hebrew book called “The Wars of God” composed by an Anglo-Jewish jeweler who lived in London at the end of the eighteenth century. The book is interesting in further documenting the Jewish response to Newtonianism, that amalgam of scientific, political, and religious ideas that pervaded the culture of England and the Continent throughout the century. Hart, while presenting Newton in a favorable light, departs from other Jewish Newtonians in voicing certain reservations about Newton's alleged religious orthodoxy, specifically his fear that the force of gravitation might be explained independent of God's divine providence. The key to understanding Hart's unique stance is his reliance on two eighteenth-century Christian theologians: William Whiston and Robert Greene, particularly the latter. In staking out this position, Hart also endorsed the theological position of his more well known Jewish colleague David Levi, the publisher of his Hebrew text. Both men reveal together the capacity of Jewish thinkers to absorb the dominant trends of thinking by the majority culture while defending honestly and defiantly the integrity of their religious faith and community.
The Study of Controversies and the Theory and History of Science
Authors: Dascal Marcelo
Published: September 2008

These introductory remarks are unorthodox in many respects. The deviance from usual practice is justified by the extreme importance I attach to the subject matter of this special issue. I want to convey to the reader a sense of why I think controversies, particularly in science, are so crucial, and to propose a different way of thinking about them. This mandates, in the limited space available, a compact presentation, omitting supporting arguments and necessary elaboration — for which the reader is referred to the bibliography.
Brouwer versus Hilbert: 1907–1928
Authors: Carl J. Posy
Published: September 2008

The Argument

L. E. J. Brouwer and David Hubert, two titans of twentieth-century mathematics, clashed dramatically in the 1920s. Though they were both Kantian constructivists, their notoriousGrundlagenstreitcentered on sharp differences about the foundations of mathematics: Brouwer was prepared to revise the content and methods of mathematics (his “Intuitionism” did just that radically), while Hilbert's Program was designed to preserve and constructively secure all of classical mathematics.

Hilbert's interests and polemics at the time led to at least three misconstruals of intuitionism, misconstruals which last to our own time: Current literature often portrays popular views of intuitionism as the product of Brouwer's idiosyncratic subjectivism; modern logicians view intuitionism as simply applying a non-standard formal logic to mathematics; and contemporary philosophers see that logic as based upon a pure assertabilist theory of meaning. These pictures stem from the way Hilbert structured the controversy.

Even though Brouwer's own work and behavior occasionally reinforce these pictures, they are nevertheless inaccurate accounts of his approach to mathematics. However, the framework provided by the Brouwer-Hilbert debate itself does not supply an adequate correction of these inaccuracies. For, even if we eliminate these mistakes within that framework, Brouwer's position would still appear fragmented and internally inconsistent. I propose a Kantian framework — not from Kant's philosophy of mathematics but from his general metaphysics — which does show the coherence and consistency of Brouwer's views. I also suggest that expanding the context of the controversy in this way will illuminate Hilbert's views as well and will even shed light upon Kant's philosophy.
The Complexity of the Genotype-Phenotype Relationship and the Limitations of Using Genetic “Markers” at the Individual Level
Authors: Templeton Alan R.
Published: September 2008

The Argument

Many associations have recently been discovered between phenotypic variation and genetic loci, causing some to advocate what Robert Sinsheimer has called “a new eugenics” that would treat genetic “defects” in individuals prone to a disease. The first premise of this vision is that genetic association studies reveal the biological cause of the phenotypic variation. Once the responsible genes are known, the second premise is that we should focus upon changing “nature” rather than “nurture” by correcting the “defective” genes.

The first premise is flawed because associations between genetic markers and phenotypes can be spurious, as shown by an example. Moreover, it is shown that using non-causative but associated genetic markers one at a time (the normal practice) can lead to incorrect predictions of disease risk for many individuals. Going from association to causation is a non-trivial step scientifically that has rarely been done in much of the human genetic research.

Even when a particular locus does contribute to the phenotypic variation of interest, the first premise remains flawed because phenotypes in general arise from complex interactions among genes and between genes and environments as shown for genes associations with coronary artery disease (CAD). The ability of current molecular genetic tools to “fix” defective genotypes is extremely limited, but even if the technological problems could be overcome, the studies on CAD reveal no obvious “defective” gene to fix because the genetic effects are so context dependent (upon both other genes and environmental factors). Contrary to the second premise of the new eugenics, the more we learn about how different genotypes show variable responses to environments, themoreimportant the environment becomes for individual treatment.

The paradigm of a “defective gene” may work for classical Mendelian genetic diseases that are due to loss-of-function mutations. However, such mutations affect only a small portion of humanity. When the focus is changed to common disease and behavioral phenotypes, the “defective gene” paradigm is biologically meaningless and often harmful when applied to individuals. Thus, even when genes clearly do influence common phenotypic variation, the premises of the “new eugenics” are biologically indefensible.
Ethical Aspects of Genetic Screening in Israel
Authors: Sagi Michal
Published: September 2008

The Argument

Advances in genetic research make it possible to identify carriers of a growing number of genetic diseases. The World Health Organization (WHO) published several preconditions for community carrier screening. This paper aims to present some of the dilemmas about screening in Israel and the difficulties in following the WHO's helpful criteria.
Genetic Services, Economics, and Eugenics
Authors: Paul Diane B.
Published: September 2008

The Argument

What are the aims of genetic services? Do any of these aims deserve to be labeled “eugenics”? Answers to these strenuously debated questions depend not just on the facts about genetic testing and screening but also on what is understood by “eugenics,” a term with multiple and contested meanings. This paper explores the impact of efforts to label genetic services “eugenics” and argues that attempts to protect against the charge have seriously distorted discussion about their purpose(s). Following Ruth Chadwick, I argue that the existence of genetic services presupposes that genetic disease is undesirable and that means should be offered to reduce it. I further argue that the economic cost of such disease is one reason why governments and health care providers deem such services worthwhile. The important question is not whether such cost considerations constitute “eugenics,” but whether they foster practices that are undesirable and, if so, what to do about them. The wielding of the term “eugenics” as a weapon in a war over the expansion of genetic services, conjoined with efforts to dissociate such services from the abortion controversy, has produced a rhetoric about the aims of these services that is increasingly divorced from reality. Candor about these aims is a sine qua non of any useful debate over the legitimacy of the methods used to advance them.
Eugenics and Roman Catholicism An Encyclical Letter in Context:Casti connubii, December 31, 1930
Authors: Lepicard Etienne
Published: September 2008

The Argument

Little has been written about religion vis à vis eugenics and, even less on Roman Catholicism and eugenics. A 1930 papal encyclical,Casti connubii, is usually held by historians to have been the official condemnatory view of the Catholic Church on eugenics, and the document is further supposed to have induced the only organized opposition to eugenic legislative efforts in several countries (especially France). In fact, the encyclical was not directly about eugenics but a general statement of the Catholic doctrine on marriage.

This article attempts to clarify the issue of a Catholic position on eugenics by re-examining the encyclical itself as well as its contemporaneous reception in Germany and France, where there was a strong Catholic presence.Casti connubiiintroduced a change in the prescribed hierarchy of the aims of marriage when, for the first time, relations between spouses took precedence over procreation. While condemning the means (abortion, sterilization, etc.), the encyclical did not condemn positive eugenics. In the broader context of the history of eugenics, the reception of the encyclical emphasizes the family as the third entity between the individual and society. Eugenics, as a “religious Utopia” of modernity, developed a hegemonic discourse over the family realm. As such it entered into competition with more traditional religious institutions such as the Roman Catholic Church.
Genetic Engineering in Contemporary Islamic Thought
Authors: Rispler-chaim Vardit
Published: September 2008

The Argument

Muslims share with others both the interest in and the concern about genetic engineering. Naturally their reactions and views stem from general Islamic dogma and from Islamic medical ethics, but they are not unaware of Western scientific data. Particularly relevant is the Islamic religious prohibition against “changing what Allah has created.” Muslim muftis try to offer practical solutions for individuals. Islamic law is concerned about maintaining pure lineage. Consanguineous matings are very common, but induced abortions are usually ruled out. Cloning has reawakened among Muslims an old debate over the positive as well as hazardous aspects of genetic engineering.
Dissecting German Social Darwinism: Historicizing the Biology of the Organic State
Authors: Weindling Paul
Published: September 2008

The Argument

Recognizing that social Darwinism is an intrinsically varied and composite concept, this essay advocates an approach delineating the various intellectual constituents and sociopolitical contexts. It is argued that German social Darwinism has often had a sophisticated biological content, and that the prevalent notion of the state as a biological organism has drawn on non-Darwinian biological theories. Different social interests and programs, institutional structures, and professional interests have also to be taken into account. Alternative interpretations stressing Nazi vulgarizations of biology have serious historical flaws. The paper considers the position of the historian Richard J. Evans, who has rejected interpretations of social Darwinism as scientific and medical discourse. While Evans stresses social Darwinism as public rhetoric, I suggest that social-Darwinist ideas have provided rationales for welfare policies and have had institutional, professional, and ideological implications. What occurred in crucial sectors of the emergent German “welfare state” was a shift from the legally trained administrators to specialists in such areas as public health and social work, who frequently looked to biology to legitimate policy.
Objective Brains, Prejudicial Images
Authors: Dumit Joseph
Published: September 2008

The Argument

In this article I argue that brain images constructed with computerized tomography (CT) and positron emission tomography (PET) are part of a category of “expert images” and are both visually persuasive and also particularly difficult to interpret and understand by non-experts. Following the innovative judicial analogy of “demonstrative evidence” traced by Jennifer Mnookin (1998), I show how brain images are more than mere illustrations when they enter popular culture and courtrooms. Attending to the role of experts in producing data in the form of images, in selecting extreme images for publication, and in testifying as to their relevance, I argue that there is an undue risk in courtrooms that brain images will not be seen as prejudiced, stylized representations of correlation, but rather as straightforward, objective photographs of, for example, madness.
“European Science in China” or “Western Learning”? Representations of Cross-Cultural Transmission, 1600–1800
Authors: Jami Catherine
Published: September 2008

The Argument

The circulation of science across cultural boundaries involves the construction of various representations by the various actors, who each account for their involvement in the process. The historiography of the transmission of European science to China in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries has long been dominated by one particular narrative: that of the Jesuit missionaries who were the main go-betweens for these two centuries. This fact has contributed to shaping Western images of China's history and science up to the present day.

To retrieve the multifaceted history of this transmission, more than one discourse needs to be taken into account. Even within the Society of Jesus, representations changed with the evolution of patronage of the mission, and the concomitant building up of state-sponsored science in Europe. Chinese sources yield different pictures, accounting for the reception of Western learning — rather than “European science” — in terms of integration rather than of conversion, and legitimizing it first by the Jesuits' status as scholars, then by the idea that Western learning was of Chinese origin. This shift corresponded to the imperial appropriation of this learning.
Ernst Cassirer, Theoretical Biology, and the Clever Hans Phenomenon
Authors: Moynahan Gregory B.
Published: September 2008

The Argument

Biology, understood in turn-of-the-century Germany to include psychology, held a central but enigmatic place in the philosopher Ernst Cassirer's work. From his earliest studies with Hermann Cohen through his long engagement with the theoretical biology of Jakob von Uexküll and Adolf Meyer-Abich, Cassirer consistently used the history and practice of biology to examine and delineate a set of characteristic tensions between the natural and cultural sciences. This paper examines Cassirer's treatment of this theme by addressing two contrasting interpretations he gave — in hisPhilosophy of Symbolic Forms(1929) and in hisEssay on Man(1944) — to the benchmark case from empirical psychology of the “talking” horse “Clever Hans.” The original case involved the horse's ability to signal answers to remarkably complex questions by stamping its hooves, an ability that ultimately appeared to rest on a capacity to detect extremely minute unintentional movement cues in its auditors as it reached the appropriate answer. Due to both Cassirer's shifting description of the case within his philosophy and the case's inherent polyvalence, Cassirer's remarks provide a useful window onto the social, epistemological, and stylistic meaning of his “unified” philosophy of human culture and science.
Gassendi andl'Affaire Galiléeof the Laws of Motion
Authors: Galluzzi Paolo
Published: September 2008

The Argument

In the lively discussions on Galileo's laws of motion after the Pisan's death, we observe what might be called a new “Galilean affair.” That is, a trial brought against his new science of motion mainly by French and Italian Jesuits with the substantial adherence of M. Mersenne. This new trail was originated by Gassendi's presentation of Galileo'sde motunot simply as a perfectly coherent doctrine, but also as a convincing argument in favor of the truth of Copernicanism.
Replication or Monopoly? The Economies of Invention and Discovery in Galileo's Observations of 1610
Authors: Biagioli Mario
Published: September 2008

The Argument

I propose a revisionist account of the production and reception of Galileo's telescopic observations of 1609–10, an account that focuses on the relationship between credit and disclosure. Galileo, I argue, acted as though the corroboration of his observations were easy, not difficult. His primary worry was not that some people might reject his claims, but rather that those able to replicate them could too easily proceed to make further discoveries on their own and deprive him of credit. Consequently, he tried to slow down potential replicators to prevent them from becoming competitors. He did so by not providing other practitioners access to high-power telescopes and by withholding information about how to build them. This essay looks at the development of Galileo's monopoly on early telescopic astronomy to understand how the relationship between disclosure and credit changed as he moved from being an instrument-maker to becoming a discoverer and, eventually, a court philosopher.
Competence and performance in child language: are children really competent to judge?
Authors: De Villiers Jill G. , De Villiers Peter A.
Published: September 2008

The notion of competence as it applies to child language is critically assessed in the light of evidence collected from a number of linguistic performances which share the same word-order rule. These performances – production, comprehension, judgment and correction – parallel Moravcsik's (1969) formulation of Chomsky's criteria for tacit knowledge of a rule, i.e. competence. It was found that these criteria are not all satisfied until the child is four or five years old, as the performances appear at very different points in time. Alternative criteria for tacit knowledge are suggested, with specific models of each performance replacing a general model of competence for early child speech.
‘This man's father is my father's son’: a study of the acquisition of English kin terms
Authors: Haviland Susan E. , Clark Eve V.
Published: September 2008

Clark's (1973) hypothesis about the acquisition of semantics proposed that young children learn the meanings of words component by component, and that, within any given semantic field, they acquire the full adult meanings for the semantically simpler terms before they acquire the semantically more complex ones. The semantic field investigated in the present study was that of kinship terms. A new analysis of kin terms, employing relational components, was used to predict the relative order of acquisition of the terms. Definitions of 15 kin terms were elicited from children aged 3;5–8;10. The data showed that semantic complexity played an important role in determining the order of acquisition, and thus provided support for both the relational analysis of kin terms and the semantic acquisition hypothesis.
On the acquisition of two complex syntactic constructions in Tamil
Authors: Garman M.
Published: September 2008

A test was designed to throw light on how three- to five-year-old Tamil children comprehend two complex sentence types, one of them ambiguous for adult speakers and involving alternating Ns and Vs in surface form (NVNV), the other unambiguous and with clustering Ns and Vs (NNVV). The results indicate that neither of the age groups tested showed adult comprehension of either construction, but apparently relied on certain strategies of perception which are sensitive to features of surface syntactic form rather than to assumed real-world probabilities. The NVNV type yielded the largest proportion of ‘correct’ responses (in terms of the adult model), and also of favoured responses (in terms of syntactic strategies that may be postulated to account for the data); but another relevant variable turned out to be the order in which the constituent structures were probed; probing the internal predicate first enhanced the probability of favoured responses, for both the constructions tested.
What is behind child utterances?
Authors: Parisi Domenico
Published: September 2008

According to Schlesinger (1973) there are two errors in our research on language development: (a) we attribute too much underlying structure to child utterances; (b) we interpret child language in terms of adult language. In response, we restate the types of evidence we have used to derive semantic representations for child utterances, and emphasize that only such representations can make sense of the way the child uses his language. One of the reasons that child sentences are brief in comparison with the structure they communicate is that the child communicates by using the immediate situation. He constructs parts of the semantic structure not conceptually but at the sensory–motor level and communicates them deictically. Nevertheless the entire structure is under the child's control. We further clarify our notion of adverbial, which has permitted us to conclude that adverbials are absent in very early speech.
Infant perception of gestural contrasts: prerequisites for the acquisition of a visually specified language
Authors: Carroll John J. , Gibson Eleanor J.
Published: September 2008

Research is reported which investigated the ability of 4-month-old hearing infants to discriminate between gestures, derived from American Sign Language (ASL), that differ solely in terms of contrasts along underlying movement dimensions. Using an habituation–dishabituation task, it is shown that young infants can make such discriminations for global movement contrasts as well as contrasts along a single movement dimension. Thus, at four months, infants possess certain prerequisite perceptual abilities for the analysis of the signs of a visually specified language. Partial failure to dishabituate to another movement contrast, however, suggests that readiness to utilize the information in gestural events may vary depending on the movement in question. Results are contrasted to infant speech perception findings and implications for further research in the development of sign perception are discussed.
Quiché Mayan speech to children
Authors: Pye Clifton
Published: September 2008

Details of the linguistic modifications in speech to children are provided for the Mayan language Quiché. Quiché input is evaluated with respect to 17 features listed in Ferguson (1978). Eight additional features are noted for Quiché speech to children: whispering, initial-syllable deletion, BT forms for verbs, a verbal suffix that appears exclusively in speech to children, a relatively fixed word order with relatively fewer overt noun phrases, more imperatives, and a special interpretive routine. Quiché parents have a special register for speaking to young children. However, Quiché speech to children has only five of the features that Ferguson cites: repetition, BT forms for qualities, compound verbs, diminutives, and special sounds. This suggests that the features of speech to children are not universal, but are determined by the conventions for interacting with children in each community. Functional explanations of such features will have to take this degree of cultural variation into consideration.
Young children's responses to neutral and specific contingent queries
Authors: Anselmi Dina , Tomasello Michael , Acunzo Mary
Published: September 2008

This study examined young children's responses to adult contingent queries. Each of 22 children in Language Stages II–V conversed alone with their mother and alone with an adult experimenter. The adults queried the child's multi-word utterances with either a neutral or a specific query. Children at all stages responded differently to the two types of query. In response to the neutral query children tended to repeat their entire utterance, whereas in response to the specific query they most often replied with only the asked-for information. Some children found it easier to differentiate the query types when their mother was the listener. These findings suggest that very young children can comprehend the linguistic structure of specific queries and that they can make pragmatically appropriate responses.
A multi-functional approach to single-word usage
Authors: Rodgon Maris Monitz , Jankowski Wayne , Alenskas Lucias
Published: September 2008

Language is conceptualized as a multi-dimensional entity which involves symbolic and cognitive aspects, communicative aspects, and structural-linguistic aspects, both syntactic and semantic. The child's task during acquisition is to become aware of, to understand, and to operate according to convention in these three spheres. Analysis of the single-word production of three children revealed developmental changes in the salience of the three aspects and individual differences in functional styles of language acquisition. Use of the multi-dimensional approach also revealed differences in the relations between language, overt action, and a child's tendency to talk about action. Many differences, particularly in communicative style, were related to differences in parent–child interaction.
One idiosyncratic strategy in the acquisition of phonology
Authors: Priestly T. M. S.
Published: September 2008

Data are presented which reflect a particular strategy used by a boy from 1; 10 to 2; 2 to manage certain polysyllabic words. Analysis shows that substitution – although probably an impetus for this strategy – was not involved in most or even all of the strategic processes themselves. An interpretation is made in terms of ‘underlying forms’ (Ingram 1970); details of the strategy and its component sub-strategies (‘ruses’) are presented.
Four early stages in the development of Li negation
Authors: Wode Henning
Published: September 2008

No reasonably successful theory of the acquisition of negation seems to have yet been proposed. Most studies describe post hoc what has taken place; but they fail to go on to suggest a theory that will predict what will take place. McNeill seems to be the only one to have explicitly aimed at a theory with at least a certain amount of predictive capacity, but his views leave much to be desired. This paper outlines an alternative proposal to cover four very early stages for the acquisition of negation systems in natural languages. It emphasizes the formal linguistic devices as the major variables that determine the various language-specific developmental sequences.
Conversational competence in children
Authors: Keenan Elinor O.
Published: September 2008

Observations of early morning conversations between twin boys (2;9 at onset of research) indicate that young children are able to sustain a coherent dialogue over a number of turns. Contrary to the views of Piaget (1926), the interlocutors generally attend to one another's utterances. Coherence is achieved to a large extent by attending to the form of one another's utterances. Extended exchanges are maintained by speakers focusing on a sequence of sounds (sound play) or a constituent within an antecedent turn and reproducing it (with or without modification) in the next turn.
The acquisition of word-meaning for dimensional adjectives: the long and short of it
Authors: Eilers Rebecca E. , Oller D. Kimbrough , Ellington Judy
Published: September 2008

Two experiments tested the semantic feature hypothesis with children younger than those previously studied. Two predictions were considered: (1) that order of acquisition of dimensional adjective pairs corresponds with their order of semantic generality; (2) that at an early stage of development, the marked members of dimensional pairs are interpreted as having the meaning of the unmarked members. In general, both experiments supported prediction one but failed to support prediction two. In Experiment II, a possible confounding variable (non-semantic size preference) was examined. Two general conclusions were reached: (1) that it is difficult to rule out semantically irrelevant factors (size preference) from experiments investigating the learning of dimensional adjectives; and (2) that refinements of the semantic feature theory may be necessary to accommodate individual differences (which may be age dependent) in strategies for learning dimensional adjectives.
Perception and production in child phonology: the testing of four hypotheses
Authors: Edwards Mary Louise
Published: September 2008

Perception and production data were collected from 28 children, ages 1; 8 to 3; 11, to test four specific hypotheses on the acquisition of initial fricatives and glides in English, based on the assumptions that perception precedes production and unmarked precedes marked. Perception data were collected by the Shvachkin-Garnica technique for ‘phonemic perception’. Pairs of objects are given nonsense names, CVCs differing only in the initial sound; the child is asked to perform certain actions with the named objects and if he is correct on 7 out of 10 trials he is assumed to have demonstrated phonemic perception of the opposition in question. Production data were compared to the perception data. Results only partially confirm the hypotheses and indicate that (a) children as late as age 3; 0 do not have complete phonemic perception, (b) phonemic perception develops gradually, generally in advance of production, and (c) the order of acquisition shows trends toward uniformity but is not universal.
Fronting in child phonology
Authors: Ingram David
Published: September 2008

This paper presents a proposed strategy of phonology based on acquisition data from two children, one French and one English. Both children showed a process of FRONTING, where the sounds in the child's words are ordered from those produced at the front of the mouth to those produced in the back. While this first appears to be an uncommon strategy, an examination of its implied universals suggests that Fronting at some more basic level may represent a general phonological process. Specifically, Fronting suggests that a marked or unmarked relationship exists between the initial and final consonants of a CVC syllable dependent upon their adherence to Fronting. It is proposed that back consonants are less marked in syllable final position than initial position and vice versa for front consonants. Thus Jakobson's theory, based on markedness in initial consonants, is just part of a more general phenomenon of markedness in syllables. Data are given that suggest that such is the case.
Acquisition of pragmatic competence
Authors: Bates Elizabeth
Published: September 2008

The following describes a study of the acquisition of ‘pragmatic’ structures by Italian children. PRAGMATICS refers to the study of the use of language in context, by real speakers and hearers in real situations. It therefore fails to meet the definition of ‘competence’ outlined by Chomsky, emphasizing the ideal speaker abstracted from particular situations, and perhaps for this reason has been neglected in psycholinguistic studies. However, there has been a renewed interest in pragmatics in recent semantic theory, and a number of proposals have been made regarding a formal representation for pragmatic structures. Three major positions can be distinguished, all of which in varying degrees separate pragmatics from the propositional content itself, as a set of procedures and assumptions for the appropriate use of propositions. Interpretive semanticists, such as Jackendoff (1972), place pragmatics entirely outside the syntactic component, in a separate and heterogeneous semantic component. Fillmore (1968) and Weinreich (1963) offer proposals for a separate ‘modality component’ which operates on a more articulated semantic structure. For example, in the sentence Could John have hit the ball?, the proposition ‘John hit the ball’ is spelled out in terms of the predicate ‘hit’, the two arguments, and the semantic relations holding among them. The modality component would contain simply a set of unanalysed symbols like QUESTION, CONDITIONAL and PAST PERFECT that are applied to the proposition. A third approach to pragmatics is offered in natural logic models like those of Parisi & Antinucci (1973) or Lakoff (forthcoming). In these models, as contrasted with the above modality component, all the meaning underlying a sentence is broken into minimal elements. Thus the above sentence is described not only with the nuclear proposition ‘John hit the ball’, but with a performative proposition describing the speaker's interrogative intention (i.e. ‘I ask you…’) and with various presuppositions1 describing the conditions that are necessary for the sentence to be appropriate. For example, instead of an unanalysed symbol for conditional, there is an ancillary proposition describing the fact that the central proposition is not necessarily true at time X. This latter approach was of more heuristic value for a developmental study of pragmatics because a representation is available for all the meaning underlying a given sentence. For example, the articulated presupposition ‘Proposition X is not necessarily true at time X’ is more easily translatable into psychological terms than an unanalysed symbol like ‘Conditional’.
The acquisition of Japanese particles
Authors: Miyahara Kazuko
Published: September 2008

Two general classes of particle may be recognized in Japanese: those with syntactic function, and those which express emotions and desires. The former can be divided into three types: CASE (Kakujoshi), CONJUNCTION (Setsuzokujoshi), and ADVERBIAL (Fukujoshi).
The ontogenesis of speech acts
Authors: Bruner Jerome S.
Published: September 2008

A speech act approach to the transition from pre-linguistic to linguistic communication is adopted in order to consider language in relation to behaviour generally and to allow for an emphasis on the USE of language rather than on its form. The structure of language is seen as non-arbitrary in that it reflects both attention structures (via predication) and action structures (via the fundamental case grammatical form of language). Linguistic concepts are first realized in action. A pilot study focusing on the regulation of JOINT attention and JOINT activity within the context of mutuality between mother and infant is discussed, with emphasis on ritualization in mutual play as a vehicle for understanding the development of the formal structures of language.
Holophrases, speech acts and language universals
Authors: Dore John
Published: September 2008

The arguments both for and against viewing the child's initial one-word utterances as HOLOPHRASES are reviewed. Some theoretical problems – concerning the innateness of language, the acquisition of syntax, the status of prosody and the child's comprehension of language during the one-word stage – with the holophrase controversy are pointed out. We suggest that an unresolvable theoretical stalemate exists because proponents on both sides of the controversy mistakenly assume the centrality of the notion sentence in discussing holophrases. An alternative view of early language development, which takes the SPEECH ACT as the basic unit of linguistic communication, is offered as a solution to the problems with the holophrase controversy as it now stands. We propose a more integrated description of the relations between functional and grammatical aspects of early communicative competence than is currently provided by sentence-oriented theories. In particular, we suggest that the child's PRAGMATIC INTENTIONS gradually become GRAMMATICALIZED as semantic and syntactic structures. Finally, three entities – communicative functions, referring expressions and predicating expressions – are proposed as LANGUAGE UNIVERSALS, as distinct from grammatical universals.
Requests and responses in children's speech
Authors: Garvey Catherine
Published: September 2008

An investigation of children's ability to convey and respond to requests for action was based on the spontaneous speech of 36 dyads of nursery school children (3; 6–5; 7). Direct request forms (e.g. Give me the hammer) were frequent and the majority were acknowledged verbally. Examination of the contexts of direct requests indicated that speaker and addressee shared an understanding of the interpersonal meaning factors relevant to requesting. These meaning factors were invoked in justifying, refusing and in repeating or paraphrasing a request, and they also provided a basis for the communication of indirect requests. Examples of inferred requests are discussed, and a relationship between the structure of the speech act and conversational sequences is proposed.
Perceptual responses to infant crying: maternal recognition and sex judgments
Authors: Murry Thomas , Hollien Harry , Müller Eric
Published: September 2008

A perceptual study was conducted in order to determine (I) whether a group of mothers could recognize their own infant on the basis of tape-recorded cry samples obtained under three cry-evoking situations, and (2) whether an infant's sex could be correctly identified simply by listening to cry samples. The results of this study indicated that mothers could recognize the cry of their own infant with few instances of confusion and that the sex of an unknown infant cannot be reliably identified using a simple auditory identification paradigm.
Features of infant sounds: the first eight weeks of life
Authors: Stark Rachel E. , Rose Susan N. , McLagen Margaret
Published: September 2008

Vocalizations of two female infants, recorded between one and eight weeks of age, were studied. The vocalizations were classified as cry, discomfort and vegetative sounds. Five examples of each sound type were selected randomly from the output of both infants and at each of three age levels (90 vocalizations in all). No changes in features were noted as a result of increasing age. The two infants showed individual feature patterns for all sound types; however, for both infants, certain features were found to be highly typical of cry and discomfort sounds, and certain others of vegetative sounds. The implications for later speech development are discussed.