"If it talks likes a duck, walks like a duck, it is functionally a duck."
I believe behaviorist/functionalist definitions of mental capacity (incl. language) are important because they represent how language is used in practise. It seems like the linguists you reference have elevated meaning into the test of linguistic competence maybe because they are trying to preserve human exceptionalism.
However, it could also be that linguists are unimpressed with recent ML-driven models of language not only because the models fail on certain probes but also because we
"If it talks likes a duck, walks like a duck, it is functionally a duck."
I believe behaviorist/functionalist definitions of mental capacity (incl. language) are important because they represent how language is used in practise. It seems like the linguists you reference have elevated meaning into the test of linguistic competence maybe because they are trying to preserve human exceptionalism.
However, it could also be that linguists are unimpressed with recent ML-driven models of language not only because the models fail on certain probes but also because we