The emergence of protolanguage : holophrasis vs compositionality / edited by Michael A. Arbib and Derek Bickerton.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Arbib, Michael A.

Bickerton, Derek.

Series:

Benjamins current topics ; v. 24.

Benjamins current topics ; v. 24

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Language and languages--Etymology.

Language and languages.

Language acquisition.

Human evolution.

Historical linguistics.

Physical Description:

xi, 181 p. : ill. (some col.).

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Amsterdam ; Philadelphia : John Benjamins Pub. Co., 2010.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In dealing with the nature of protolanguage, an important formative factor in its development, and one that would surely have influenced that nature, has too often been neglected: the precise circumstances under which protolanguage arose. Three factors are involved in this neglect: a failure to appreciate radical differences between the functions of language and animal communication, a failure to relate developments to the overall course of human evolution, and the supposition that protolanguage represents a package, rather than a series of separate developments that sequentially impacted the communication of pre-humans. An approach that takes these factors into account is very briefly suggested.

Contents:

The Emergence of Protolanguage

Editorial page

Title page

LCC data

Untitled

Table of contents

Preface

Is a holistic protolanguage a plausible precursor to language?

1. Introduction

2. Learning by segmentation and the analysis process

3. Criticism 1: Can Homo analyse?

3.1 Can modern humans analyse?

3.2 Could earlier hominids analyse?

3.3 Can Homo analyse: A summary

4. Criticism 2: Can analysis tolerate counter-examples?

4.1 Claim 1: The existence of counter-examples

4.2 Dealing with counter-examples

4.3 Counter-examples: A summary

5. Criticism 3: Does analysis violate the uniformitarian assumption?

6. Conclusions

Acknowledgements

Notes

References

Author's address

About the author

Proto-discourse and the emergence of compositionality

2. Discourse as sequenced communicative behaviour

3. From joint attention to words

4. From words to combinations

5. Conclusion

Protolanguage in ontogeny and phylogeny

Method

Children

Apes

Combining gesture with and word or lexigram: Parallel phenomena in child and ape

Frequency of different kinds of two-element combinations

Developmental sequencing

Indication

Agent-action relation

Object associated with another object or location

Sources of ape-child differences in gesture-symbol combinations

Unique to human children: Constructing messages indicating possession

Deixis plus representation as a dynamic force in language ontogeny: Implications for protolanguage

Author's addresses

From metonymy to syntax in the communication of events

1. The plausibility of protolanguage

2. Protopragmatics

3. Protosemantics

3.1 The deictic stage

3.2 Meaning fractionation vs. combination.

3.3 Multi-metonymy: Compositionality without syntax

3.4 Ambiguity and inference

4. The functions of protolanguage

4.1 Proximal functions

4.2 Ultimate functions

4.3 The 'first-to-know' display

5. Discussion

6. From protolanguage to language

7. Conclusion

The "complex first" paradox

Words and concepts

Nouns and adjectives

The structure of meaning

Situated conceptualization and the theory of neuro-frames

Evolution and development of the syntax-semantics interface

Holophrastic protolanguage

2. Conceptual planning: Implications for protolanguage

3. Idioms, processing and complexity

4. Lexical constraints on word learning

Protolanguage reconstructed

2. The nature of protolanguage

2.1 Synthetic complexification

2.2 Analytic complexification

2.3 Semantic complexity

3. Protolinguistic communication

3.1 Coded communication

3.2 Inferential communication

4. The consequences of meaning inference

4.1 Variation

4.2 Reconstructibility

5. Complexification

5.1 Semantic complexification

5.2 Syntactic complexification

5.3 To language

6. Conclusion

Acknowledgments

Growth points from the very beginning

Across time scales

Gestures and speech - Two simultaneous modes of semiosis

Kendon's continuum

The growth point

A thought-language-hand brain link

The IW case

GPs and language evolution

'Mead's Loop' and mirror neurons

But not 'gesture-first'

Conclusions

The roots of linguistic organization in a new language

Duality of patterning

Prosody

Syntax

Words

Phrases

Sentences

Units larger than a clause

Recursion

Morphology

Conclusion

Notes.

References

Holophrasis and the protolanguage spectrum

2. An evolutionary scenario in which holophrasis plays a key role

The Mirror System Hypothesis (MSH)

Construction grammar versus universal grammar

From holophrasis to compositionality

The emergence of phonology

3. Facing up to common problems

4. Defending the holophrastic view

From situations to protowords

Predicates and Categories

Simplicity is complicated

Grammar emerges

But how did protolanguage actually start?

2. Critical differences between human and non-human communication

3. Relevance to the holophrasis-compositionality debate

4. The need for a paleoanthropological approach

Name Index

Subject index

The series Benjamins Current Topics (BCT).

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

ISBN:

9786612775024

9781282775022

1282775022

9789027287823

9027287821

OCLC:

673664200