The origins of meaning / James R. Hurford.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hurford, James R.

Series:

Hurford, James R. Language in the light of evolution ; 1.

Language in the light of evolution ; 1

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Semantics--History.

Semantics.

Communication.

Evolution.

History.

Physical Description:

xiii, 388 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2007.

Contents:

Part I Meaning Before Communication

1 Let's Agree on Terms 3

1.1 Defining semantics with evolution in mind 3

1.2 Health warning about 'concepts' 9

1.3 A scale from no-brainers to cognitive concepts 16

2 Animals Approach Human Cognition 20

2.1 Induction, generalization, and abstraction 22

2.2 Freewill, or at least some metacognition 29

2.3 Object permanence and displaced reference 36

2.4 Biological motion and animacy 41

2.5 Structured conceptual content and transitive inference 45

2.6 Semantic memory, a store of non-linguistic knowledge 49

2.7 Sensory-motor declarative-imperative co-involvement in concepts 60

3 A New Kind of Memory Evolves 65

3.1 Episodic memory in animals: knowledge of the past and future 71

3.2 Episodic memory and Kantian analytic/synthetic 83

4 Animals Form Proto-propositions 88

4.1 The magical number 4-how big is a simple thought? 90

4.2 Predicate-argument structure in animal brains 96

4.3 Local and global attention to objects and scenes 103

4.4 Animal truth, reference and sense 113

5 Towards Human Semantics 123

5.1 A parsimonious Begriffsschrift for proto-propositions 123

5.2 Getting rid of individual constants 128

5.3 Getting rid of ordered arguments and role-markers 140

5.4 One-place predicates over scenes and objects 147

5.5 Armchair ontology of objects, events, and scenes 157

Part II Communication: What and Why?

6 Communication by Dyadic Acts 167

6.1 Roughly and readily defining 'communication' 167

6.2 Pragmatic origins 170

6.3 Things animals do to each other 177

6.4 Getting the right environmental conditions 185

6.5 From innate to learned 197

7 Going Triadic: Precursors of Reference 205

7.1 Early manipulation of attention 205

7.2 Indexical/deictic pointing 208

7.3 Standardized alarm and food calls 225

7.4 Beyond innate symbols and learned deixis 235

8 Why Communicate? Squaring with Evolutionary Theory 243

8.1 Bridges, bullets, monsters, and niches 244

8.2 Evolutionary theories of altruism and cooperation 252

8.3 Evolutionary theories of selfish communication 277

8.4 (Cultural) group selection 293

9 Cooperation, Fair Play, and Trust in Primates 307

9.1 Mind-reading, a prerequisite for intentional cooperation 307

9.2 Cooperation 313

9.3 Fair play 322

9.4 Trust(-worthiness), groups, faces, and a hormone 325

9.5 Wrapping up 329.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [335]-371) and index.

ISBN:

9780199207855

0199207852

OCLC:

123079229