Hand Gesture Study: We Think Like Yoda Talks
Cats: Language|An interesting study published recently demonstrated that when native speakers of languages with various word orders were forced to communicate only with their hands, they all used Subject-Object-Verb syntax.
“‘Not surprisingly, speakers of different languages describe events using the word orders prescribed by their language. The surprise is that when the same speakers are asked to ’speak’ with their hands and not their mouths, they ignore these orders – they all use exactly the same order when they gesture,’ said Susan Goldin-Meadow, the Bearsdley Rum Distinguished Service Professor in Psychology and lead author of the paper, ‘The Natural Order of Events: How Speakers of Different Languages Represent Events Nonverbally’ published in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.”
So when faced with saying “The captain swings the pail,” for instance, test subjects all gestured “captain pail swings.” This hints at the basic syntax of the theoretical universal grammar, or the basic set of language rules shared by all humans…and little green Jedi masters.
Okay, to be honest, Yoda uses an entirely different messed up syntax than this–more of an Verb-Object-Subject order, with a lot of helping verbs tossed in to make it intelligible to English speakers. Although he seemed to conform more to English patterns in his later years. (Plus he’s not real, which I have to keep reminding myself.) But it seemed like a good idea at the time.
