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Language Capacity: Human and Non-Human

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Does empirical scholarly evidence suggest a quantitative or a qualitative difference in language capacity between humans and non-human primates? Please do not copy and paste or quote. Please give scholarly references to support your position. Thank you.

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The capacity of language between human and non-human primates is discussed in brief, as regards potential qualitative and quantitative difference, drawing on examples from other species as well.

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The question of difference in language capacity rests, perhaps unsurprisingly, on definitions of the given terms. For example, when we speak of a 'qualitative' difference, this can be meant two ways: (1) as regards the quality of it within itself, and (2) as regards the quality of it in comparison to the human language. One need not look very far to see why this distinction is important: even though English is an amalgamation of several dialects in the ...

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