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Explicitness and predication: A risky linkage

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 October 1999

Andrew Carstairs-McCarthy
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealanda.c-mcc@ling.canterbury.ac.nz www.ling.canterbury.ac.nz/adc-m.html

Abstract

Dienes & Perner (D&P) link explicit knowledge of facts to predication. But predication is basically a linguistic notion. Their approach therefore makes it difficult to attribute knowledge of facts to non- language-users, such as animals. The explicit/implicit distinction, as D&P formulate it, is accordingly of little use for exploring the cognitive capacities of nonhuman primates – despite the increasing evidence for sophisticated social awareness among apes, implying mental representations of events in which participants are clearly distinguished. A revised formulation, less biased toward syntax as it happens to have evolved in humans, could avoid this drawback.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
© 1999 Cambridge University Press

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