I'm dubious about this, mostly because examples of the higher-order language use of signing apes turned out to be largely cherrypicked. It wasn't at all clear that the researchers were doing it with purposeful deceptiveness - it was just that they seized on exchanges that could be construed as having meaning, and ignored those that could not. We're pattern-seeking animals ourselves, after all.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-15 07:21 am (UTC)