¿Pueden adquirir palabras los animales?sobre el aprendizaje de palabras por un perro
ISSN: 0212-7636, 2171-6692
Ano de publicación: 2005
Número: 19
Páxinas: 301-318
Tipo: Artigo
Outras publicacións en: ELUA: Estudios de Lingüística. Universidad de Alicante
Resumo
It has been argued that several animal species possess the equivalent of human words from the perspectives of production or perception. This article critically discusses such proposals, with special reference to Kaminski, Cali & Fisher's (2004) paper, which concentrates its work on the "word learning" abilities of a domestic dog. We argue that attributing words (or word-like items) to animals supposes a misconception about what words actually imply. Such a misconception considers words to be much simpler than they are. Accordingly, the article suggests, and aims at showing, that the seemingly lexical achievements of the aforementioned dog, named Rico, (and those of other animals) are not with true words; instead, they are to be regarded as labels for objects or concepts.