Gaustad replies

Sign Language Studies 35 as a deaf child might, Gaustad apparently fails to grasp that both speaking and signing children, but not apes, provide rich corpora of spontaneous utterances that allow one to ascertain the degree to which a child's utterances are rule governed. The plentiful supply of spontaneous utterances obviates one's concern as to whether the child's utterances were modeled after immediate prior utterances. Emphasizing spontaneous utterances in the study of language development in children is not to create "more stringent criteria" for evaluating an ape's utterances. It is simply to note an essential difference between children and apes in their use of words and signs. Gaustad is obviously correct that sign order is neither the only nor the most important grammatical device in sign language. It is however the basis of the semantic contrasts drawn by the Gardners in their analysis of the meanings of Washoe's twosign combinations (Gardner & Gardner 1971). It hardly follows, however, that sign order is irrelevant or that it should be ignored, Nor does it follow that just because a chimpanzee repeats a sign or doubles its hands, that it is modulating the meaning of a sign. One can also argue, more simply, that such phenomena are strongly conditioned responses. Rats, monkeys, and even chimpanzees will continue to make certain arbitrary responses, such as pecking a key, pressing a bar, or signing 'banana' until they obtain the reward they are seeking. I see no reason to alter my conclusion that apes lack the ability to create sentences. Herbert S. Terrace Gaustad replies: Terrace conducted an inadequate study of chimpanzee language acquisition, inappropriately analyzed his own results, and arrived at unwarranted conclusions. His reply to my review adds nothing new, while at the same time confusing issues by repudiating what he wrote in Nim. Historically chimpanzees have been used in this kind of psychological research because their physical, social, and intellectual development closely parallels that of human beings. Young chimpanzees sleep a lot, as do young children-more than 12 hours a day at four years of age. If Terrace thinks now that Nim was awake and signing 16 hours a day, he must have had little contact with Nim; either that or his memory of what four-year-old chimpanzees are like must have faded. Moreover, in Nim Terrace reports that his subject was not observed throughout his waking hours; Nim was rarely let out of solitary confine- Reply ment in his sleeping quarters before 9:30 in the morning (p. 153), was returned in the early evening (p. 108), and spent 5 to 6 of the remaining hours (p. 56) locked in his classroom. Thus not 15 %but nearly all of the data-the videotapes used in the "discourse analysis" (pp. 101, 118), the records for the "semantic analysis" (p. 183), and the records for the "sign order analysis" (p. 172)-come from teaching sessions conducted in the Columbia classroom or in the 8 x 8 foot replica that Terrace had constructed at Nim's off-campus quarters (pp. 80ff) on a "grueling schedule (p. 56). Terrace describes the training sessions: Typically, Nim reached for something he might want to play with, eat, or inspect. The teacher withheld the item, molded the object's name sign, and then asked Nim to sign for the object. Signs such as 'give', 'me', and 'Nim', while appropriate, were deemed unacceptable when we were trying to teach Nim a new sign. . . . By age 30 months, Nim began to learn new signs by imitation. In the context of the desired object, such as a baby doll, the teacher withheld the object, pointed to it, and then signed 'baby'. Nim responded by imitating the teacher's sign. ... After noting Nim's response, the teacher simply shifted to another activity. (1980: 377f) It is a wonder that any spontaneity was exhibited by Nim. However, when chimpanzees are raised in a way that more nearly resembles the rearing conditions of human children, the chimpanzee's utterances are spontaneous; compare VanCantfort and Rimpau (SLS 34: 15-72) on what occurs in other projects. As Katherine Nelson said in response to Terrace's claim that children neither repeat...