Language and Thought.

Abstract

concepts; categorization; space; number Possessing a language is one of the central features that distinguishes humans from other species. Many people share the intuition that they think “in ” language, hence that the absence of language would, ipso facto, be the absence of thought. One compelling version of this self-reflection is Helen Keller’s (1955) report that her recognition of the signed symbol for ‘water’ triggered thought processes which had theretofore-- and consequently-- been utterly absent. Statements to the same or related effect come from the most diverse intellectual sources: “The limits of my language are the limits of my world ” (Wittgenstein, 1922]; and “The fact of the matter is that the 'real world ' is to a large extent unconsciously built upon the language habits of the group” (Sapir, 1941, as cited in Whorf, 1956, p. 75). * We thank Jerry Fodor for a discussion of the semantics of raining, Ray Jackendoff for a discussion of phonology, as well as Dan Slobin and Dedre Gentner for their comments on this chapter. Much of our perspective derives from our collaborative work with

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