Place, U. T. (1983d). Skinner's Verbal Behavior IV - how to improve Part IV, Skinner's account of syntax. Behaviorism, 11, 163-186. www.jstor.org/stable/27759026
Keywords: behavioural contingency semantics, Skinner, verbal behavior
[References]  [3 citing publications]  [15 referring publications by Place]  
Download: 1983d Skinner's Verbal Behavior IV - How to Improve Part IV - Skinner's Account of Syntax.pdf

Place, U. T. (1985a). A response to Sundberg and Michael. VB News, 3, 38-45. [Reprinted in The Analysis of Verbal Behavior, 3, 41-47]
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Download: 1985a A Response to Sundberg and Michael.pdf

Place, U. T. (1985e). Three senses of the word "tact" - a reply to Professor Skinner. Behaviorism, 13, 155-156.
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Download: 1985e Three Senses of the Word 'Tact' - A Reply to Professor Skinner.pdf

Place, U. T. (1986a). Ethics as a system of behavior modification. In L. J. Parrott, & P. N. Chase (Eds.), Psychological Aspects of Language: The West Virginia Lectures (Chapter 6, pp.157-178). Charles C. Thomas.
[References]  [1 citing publications]  [2 referring publications by Place]  [Is replied by]  
Download: 1986a Ethics as Behavior Modification - revised version.pdf revised and two footnotes added after publication of the book

Place, U. T. (1988h). Pre-linguistic and post-linguistic concepts. [Presentation to the Generalisation Group, Department of Psychology, University College of North Wales, Bangor at 10 March 1988 and to the Department of Psychology, Trinity College, Dublin at 11 March 1988.]
Note:
After the presentation revised by the author. The last revision is from 24^th March 1999. The central argument of the paper has not been revised.
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Download: 1988h Pre-Linguistic and Post-Linguistic Concepts.pdf

Place, U. T. (1991a). Conversation analysis and the analysis of verbal behavior. In L. J. Hayes, & P. N. Chase (Eds.), Dialogues on verbal behavior: The First International Institute on Verbal Relations (Chapter 5, pp. 85-109). Context Press.
[References]  [4 citing publications]  [5 referring publications by Place]  [Is replied by]  
Download: 1991a Conversation Analysis and Analysis of Verbal Behavior.pdf

Place, U. T. (1992a). Behavioral contingency semantics and the correspondence theory of truth. In S. C. Hayes,& L. J. Hayes (Eds.), Understanding verbal relations: The Second and Third International Institute on Verbal Relations (Chapter 9, pp. 135-151). Context Press.
Keywords: behaviour analysis, behavioural contingency semantics, correspondence theory of truth, picture theory of meaning, situation, three-term contingency
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Download: 1992a Behavioral Contingency Semantics and the Correspondence Theory of Truth.pdf

Place, U. T. (1996a). Names as constituents of sentences: an omission. Commentary on P. Horne and C. F. Lowe, 'On the origins of naming and other symbolic behavior'. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 65, 302-304. doi:10.1901/jeab.1996.65-302
[Abstract]After Skinner's (1957) insistence on separating the behavior of the speaker from that of the listener, Horne & Lowe (1996) have brought these two aspects of language back together by showing that in learning a name the child must not only learn, as speaker, to produce the name when presented with the object to which it applies, it must also learn, as listener, to select the object when presented with the name. What is missing from their account is the recognition that it is sentences, rather than names, that are the functional units of language, and that a primitive sentence requires a function or predicate in the form of an action-name in addition to one or more object-names. They are also chided for failing to distinguish the three senses of Skinner's term "tact" to which the writer drew attention in an earlier paper (Place 1985).
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Download: 1996a Names as Constituents of Sentences - An Omission.pdf

Place, U. T. (1996q). The picture theory of meaning and its implication for the theory of truth and its discrimination. Communication and Cognition, 29, 5-14.
[Abstract]Linguistic behaviourism is an approach to linguistics, philosophy and the philosophy of science which combines Skinner's (1957) thesis that language is a form of learned social behaviour maintained by the reinforcement practices of a linguistic or, as he would say, "verbal" community with Chomsky's (1957, etc.) insistence that the functional unit of language is the sentence and that sentences are seldom repeated word-for-word, but are typically constructed anew on each occasion of utterance. The ability of the listener or reader to be directed by an imperative sentence to do something she has never done before or to be alerted by a declarative sentence to the existence of a situation the like of which she has never encountered and to which she would otherwise have no access is explained on a version of the picture theory of meaning in which the structure and content of the sentence maps onto the structure and content of the situation which is thereby depicted. Hand in hand with the picture theory of meaning goes a correspondence theory of what it means for a contingent proposition to be true. But in accounting for the way true contingent propositions are discriminated, both the coherence and the pragmatic principles are invoked.
Keywords: correspondence theory of truth, picture theory of meaning
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Download: 1996q The Picture Theory of Meaning and its Implication for the Theory of Truth and its Discrimination.pdf

Place, U. T. (1997a). Contingency analysis applied to the pragmatics and semantics of naturally occurring verbal interactions. In J. L. Owen (Ed.), Context and communication behavior (Chapter 18, pp. 369-385). Context Press.
[Abstract]Contingency analysis is a technique for analyzing the relation between a living organism and its environment based on a generalized version of Skinner's (1969) concept of the "three-term contingency." It can be applied to the analysis of any sequence of events in which a single individual interacts with its environment or, as in the case of social behavior, in which two or more individuals interact with each other. It is particularly valuable when applied to the analysis of naturally-occurring verbal interactions, such as conversations and business transactions. It can be applied not only to the sequence of events whereby utterances follow one another as the interaction proceeds, their pragmatics, but also to the semantic content of the utterances, the sequence of events called for by what Skinner (1957) calls a "mand" or those recorded or predicted by the kind of declarative sentence he sometimes (Place 1985) calls a "tact".
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Download: 1997a Contingency Analysis Applied to the Pragmatics and Semantics of Naturally Occurring Verbal Interactions.pdf

Place, U. T. (1997b). Linguistic behaviorism and the correspondence theory of truth. Behavior and Philosophy, 25, 83-94. www.jstor.org/stable/27759370
[Abstract]Linguistic Behaviorism (Place, 1996) is an attempt to reclaim for the behaviorist perspective two disciplines, linguistics and linguistic philosophy, most of whose practitioners have been persuaded by Chomsky's (1959) Review of B. F. Skinner's (1957) Verbal Behavior that behaviorism has nothing useful to contribute to the study of language. It takes as axiomatic (a) that the functional unit of language is the sentence, and (b) that sentences are seldom repeated word-for-word, but are constructed anew on each occasion of utterance out of units, words, phrases and turns of phrase, that are repeated. On this view, the problem of discriminating the true from the false arises from the use of novel declarative sentences (statements) to depict or, to use Skinner's term, "specify" contingencies the like of which the listener need never have encountered and to which he would otherwise have no access. In such cases the listener needs to distinguish among the sentences he receives from other speakers between those where the situation depicted/specified corresponds to that which actually exists at the time and place specified in the sentence and are, therefore, true, and those to which no actual situation corresponds and which are, therefore, false.
Keywords: correspondence theory of truth, linguistic behaviorism
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Download: 1997b Linguistic Behaviourism and the Correspondence Theory of Truth.pdf

Place, U. T. (1997d). Rescuing the science of human behavior from the ashes of socialism. Psychological Record, 47, 649-659. doi:10.1007/BF03395251
[Abstract]The discredit into which the socialist ideal has fallen as a consequence of recent political events calls into question, not just the viability of a particular political and economic system but, the very idea that the social order can be improved by applying principles derived from the scientific study of human social behavior. Before the collapse of socialism, the idea of a science of human behavior, construed in biological terms as a branch of the science of the behavior of free-moving living organisms in general, had been undermined by Chomsky's (1959) repudiation of the behaviorist project to construct a science of language (verbal behavior) based on principles derived from the study of animal learning. I contend that only by reinstating the link between linguistics and the study of animal learning can confidence be restored in the possibility of a genuine science of human behavior with application to the problem of constructing a better social order.
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Place, U. T. (2000c). The role of the hand in the evolution of language. Psycoloquy, 11(7), January 23. www.cogsci.ecs.soton.ac.uk/cgi/psyc/newpsy?11.007
[Abstract]This article has four sections. Section I sets out four principles which should guide any attempt to reconstruct the evolution of an existing biological characteristic. Section II sets out thirteen principles specific to a reconstruction of the evolution of language. Section III sets out eleven pieces of evidence for the view that vocal language must have been preceded by an earlier language of gesture. Based on those principles and evidence, Section IV sets out seven proposed stages in the process whereby language evolved: (1) the use of mimed movement to indicate an action to be performed, (2) the development of referential pointing which, when combined with mimed movement, leads to a language of gesture, (3) the development of vocalisation, initially as a way of imitating the calls of animals, (4) counting on the fingers leading into (5) the development of symbolic as distinct from iconic representation, (6) the introduction of the practice of question and answer, and (7) the emergence of syntax as a way of disambiguating utterances that can otherwise be disambiguated only by gesture.
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Download: 2000c The Role of the Hand in the Evolution of Language.pdf