sleeping bag. The reason her father put her tied-up at all times was because her father believed she was retarded from birth on and felt this was the good solution, so that she would not and could not be exploited. She was beaten for making noise. So she learned to keep silent and to suppress all vocalization. Genie's father was convinced that Genie would die. He was so convinced of this that he promised Irene that if she would live beyond the age of twelve, she could seek help for Genie. Genie survived, but her father abandoned his promise. Finally, when Genie was 13 ½ years old, Genie's mother got into a violent argument with Clark, and she threatened him to leave unless he called her parents. He did. Later that day mother and child moved out, and found their way to the general social services office. Her parents were then charged with abuse. The morning they were supposed to appear in court on charges of willful abuse or injury to the person or health of a minor, her father committed suicide.
             Genie, looking as if she was 6 or 7 was in reality a teenager. She weighed only 4 stone, and was four and a half feet tall. She was incontinent, could not chew food, she could not focus her eyes beyond twelve feet and she could not cry. She could not hop, skip, climb or do anything requiring the full extension of her limbs. She showed no perception of heat or cold.
             Furthermore, and most interesting to scientists, she could not speak. And that is what this paper is about.
             However before I start to elaborate on Genie's performance in learning language, I will explain something about the history of linguistics and language acquisition.
             Until the high renaissance European philosophers related language to the Bible. It was thought that any human attribute must be as inevitably mysterious and divine beyond investigation as the creator it reflected. Descartes came up with a very unorthodox view of human beings: he divided man i...