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Re: Peter Gordon's research

October 11, 2007 by coglanglab, 2 years 4 weeks ago
Comment id: 25402

I haven't actually read Peter Gordon's original paper all the way through, so I want to be careful discussing it (partly because the reports I've read about it conflict with each other). My understanding, too, was that his data indicated a one, two, many system. However, he only had 4 subjects.

Last winter, Mike Frank & Ted Gibson at MIT tried to replicate Peter Gordon's data with more subjects (14) using some of the same tasks and some different tasks. Their data indicate a "little," "some," and "many" system instead. My notes from Mike Frank's talk say that he believes there could be other languages that have a similar system but that nobody had tested them the same way Frank & Gibson did.

In any case, both Gordon & Frank seem to agree that the Piraha do not count above the number 2.

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