What does it mean to explain something?
In my advanced verbal behavior class at Western New England University, we like to begin with the most general question one can ask when trying to understand something about the …
Shakespeare’s Alchemy
Apparently, Lawrence was right. Visitations by zombies to the streets of Rome has happened before. Here’s how Shakespeare reported the “Caesar incident” in the opening scene of Hamlet: In the …
What Kind of Verbal Operant is “Right?”
5 I am not the first person to wonder, “What is the function of asking Right? in the middle of a sustained flow of verbal behavior?” As the internet is …
Grammar: An Icelandic Saga
As I pointed out in a 2023 paper, the principal limitation of Skinner’s analysis of verbal behavior is that it fails to address grammar. To put it somewhat differently, it …
What is a Pronoun?
A correspondent asked, “From a behavioral perspective, what is a pronoun?” This was my response (lightly edited): Several possible responses came to mind. A) It’s not a behavioral concept, so …
Origins of the Concept of the Autoclitic
9 Despite the suspicions of vulgar-minded behavior analysts, Skinner’s term “autoclitic” has distinguished antecedents. The “enclitic,” is a long-established grammatical term for a morphological unit that does not stand alone …
On the Force of Coincidence and Joint Control
2 I was walking across campus one day when I saw Ingrid crossing the sidewalk a hundred feet or more ahead of me. She had been a prize student in …
The Power of Lies and the First Amendment
3 The Sept. 5, 2008 edition of [the Onion] reported that a damp stain on a concrete wall in Tennessee bore a striking resemblance to the features of Charles Darwin. …