Ossorio: What is it that makes a set of behaviors language behavior? That's an interesting one.

Member of Audience: What was the question?

Ossorio: What is it that makes a set of behaviors language behavior? Now one reason it's interesting is that nobody else that I know has an answer to this. Psychologists study behavior; other people study behavior; and they have theories of behavior. And from those theories you would never suspect that there was such a thing as language. You would never suspect that there was such a thing as verbal behavior. Linguists study verbal behaviors. They study language. And from what they say you would hardly know that language was a form of behavior. The ones who are sensitive to this problem have invented their own psychology in order to create a place, a notion of behavior within which language fits. And they are not very good theories as psychology.

[writing on board] <B> = <I, W, K, KH, P, A, PC, S> Now there's the general formula for behavior. It has eight parameters: Identity, Want, Know, Know-how, Performance, Achievement, Person Characteristics, and Significance. That's the general notion of behavior. So what we need to say is "What do you need to have in addition to that so that you have not just behavior but, specifically, verbal behavior?"

Here is the formula for verbal behavior. <V> = <C-L-B> C is a concept. L is a locution. And B is a set of behaviors that consists of acting on the concept. A slight variation in that is that B is a set of behaviors that consist of treating something as being of the sort identified by the concept. So for example, "chair". You need a concept of the chair. You need a locution which is the word "chair", and you need a set of behaviors that consist of treating something as a chair. The concept is simply part of the "K" value. "K" is the distinctions that are being acted on. So the concept here is simply one of the distinctions that's being acted on. The locution is part of the value of the performance parameter. And these behaviors are simply other behaviors like this, that have this [points to "chair"] as part of the "K" value. And that's all it takes.

Now, what this shows is that to say that a behavior is a verbal behavior is not to describe a certain kind behavior. What it is, is to give an incomplete description of a behavior. This description is an incomplete version of this. So when you have a behavior that not only is this way [points to <B> = <I, W, K, KH, P, A, PC, S> ] but is also this way [points to <V> = <C-L-B> ] then you have a verbal behavior. Linguistics is what looks at the performance. What kind of words, what kind of sentences, what kind of structures do you have to have in order for this performance to be the right kind of thing to be a locution? Not any old performance is going to be a locution. So the field of linguistics is right here [pointing to P]. What kind of performance? What qualifies as a locution? They have very elaborate theories about that.

Member of Audience: So you would say that linguistics is the behaviorism of verbal behavior and that it focuses only on the performance parameter...

Ossorio: Yeah, there is something paradoxical there. The linguists say we are not dealing with performance; we are dealing with competence. In their framework that makes sense. In this framework I would say clearly they are dealing with performance. But notice that since they are dealing with performance you could easily say that, "Well, since the performance is neither chance nor random, what is implied is a corresponding know-how." So it makes sense for them to say "We are dealing with the know-how." But the payoff is not that they are dealing with the know-how. The payoff is that they are dealing with the performance.

Member of Audience: Does anybody deal with the other two?

Ossorio: No.

Member of Audience: Could you say a little more about linguistic theories? I'm not that familiar with them but from what I have read, they seem to say some pretty weird things about competencies in terms of what kind of competence people have. I am not sure how much of it makes sense.

Ossorio: Well, think of how complicated it is to specify what kind of performance is a locution and all of the different possibilities for English -- let's just talk about English -- for sentences. It's a complex formalism that it takes to lay out the various possibilities of what is an instance of the English language. Now, since that's complicated, you might conclude that the skill is equally complicated. But you might not. If you took this to be a theory of competence then you would say "That's a tremendously complicated competency." If you take it to be a performance, it may be a fairly simple competence.

Now, what they have done to a large extent is to think "Maybe a lot of this is wired in." You have heard the phrase I am sure. There is one outstanding reason why they say this. And that is, if you were investigating a language and you asked "What kind of sample of the language would I need to have in order to figure out what language that was, and not merely what language that was, but all of the rules for that language so that I could speak it?", "What kind of data would I have to have?" "How much data?" And the answer they get - and they always get this answer - is what a child gets in the way of input from hearing people talk, etc. is nowhere near the amount and kind of data that you would need if you started out with zip and had to figure out all of the rules that apply to the language that you speak. Therefore, some of it must be wired in. That's how it goes. Now there is a fallacy there. Namely, who is to say how much you need to see in order to figure it out? You might argue "Well, the fact that kids learn without being taught, isn't that evidence that the amount of data you need is really much smaller than these guys think?" You could say that. And in fact that is what I am more inclined to say than that other.

Member of Audience: ...adequate as an explanation at best...

Ossorio: Not so much that it is adequate as an explanation, because I don't think that either of them are particularly explanatory. It's two different ways of handling the same problem, the same facts.

Member of Audience: Does that apply to music as well?

Ossorio: I would think it would.

Member of Audience: Cause everybody does music.

Ossorio: No, I don't see why all of the stuff about language wouldn't apply directly to music.

Member of Audience: What was the question?

Ossorio: She said "Would it apply to music too?" And I said I don't see why not. It seems to me a completely parallel situation.

Member of Audience: What about things like [hitting his glass with a knife], meaning "Can I have your attention?" That seems to fit C-L-B. We don't normally call that a word. Is that language?

Ossorio: That's not a locution.

Member of Audience: How come?

Ossorio: It isn't. Remember you have elaborate theories for specifying what is a locution. But behind that we have the native speaker intuition because we are speakers. Any speaker will tell you "That's not a locution."

Member of Audience: That's a gesture.

Ossorio: It's a signal. Given the right set of conventions, it is a signal. It's communication, but you are not saying anything.

Member of Audience: ...the "B" that's on the end...

Ossorio: That's outside the scope of that. That's a set of behaviors.

Member of Audience: Could you comment on when you use...

Ossorio: I just ran out of room here. Otherwise I would have put the B down here. There is no correspondence between the B and any of this. There is a correspondence here from C to K and from L to P. There is no correspondence with the B. The B is simply another set of behaviors like this.

Member of Audience: So those outside the bracket.

Ossorio: Right. It is outside this bracket [points to <B> = <I, W, K, KH, P, A, PC, S>] but it is within this bracket [points to <V> = <C-L-B> ]. Okay, those were the easy ones. [laughter]

Member of Audience: Could you give me an outline of some kind of theory of the beginnings or development of language...

Member of Audience: Jim, could you say that louder?

Member of Audience: Well, what would a theory of language development look like within the Descriptive framework if you were just starting...

Ossorio: You have to be careful when you say "What's the Descriptive approach?" to anything. There is no Descriptive approach to anything. Any one of you could use the Descriptive framework and develop a theory of language and language development and they would all be different. It is not that there is a set of answers built into Descriptive that all you have to do is read it off.

Member of Audience: But my question was what would you do? [laughter]

Ossorio: The way that I would go is to say there is an age at which kids learn this [pointing to the formula for behavior]. And roughly speaking it is the age where they are going around asking "Why?" And when parents ask them "Why did you do that?" and start getting some kind of answer. And that to me is a very fundamental point in development. Once you acquire the notion of doing something, then there is a whole lot of things, in fact, almost everything else is simply an instance or a variation on that. Because one of the things that you can do is talk. You can say something. So once you have the notion of doing something, the notion of saying something is simply a special case. So that would be how I would approach a developmental theory. Okay, any more on language?

Member of Audience: I have just a comment that you can comment on if you want. When I was in Saudi Arabia I was told that there were many Arab people who could recite the Koran by heart who couldn't read and couldn't write. I wonder how they do that. They just rattle this thing off.

Member of Audience: Could you repeat that, please.

Ossorio: Okay, the question is that there are people in Arabia who can rattle off the Koran and how long is that? It is about an inch thick book and they can rattle it off from start to finish. There are people that can do that with a Bible. I bet you that not every Arab can do that. I bet you that not everybody in this country can do it with a Bible. So what does it take to be able to do that? Well, one thing you can bet is lots of exposure, lots of rehearsal, lots of practice. You don't get it just from listening once unless you are one of these eidetic memory people. So by listening, by rehearsing, by practicing, if you do enough of that, these people are evidence that you can go that far with it.

Member of Audience: Without being able to read or write.

Ossorio: Yeah, remember the first thing we learn to do is talk, not read or write.