The centrality of speech for human thought
-
Joana Rosselló Ximenes
Abstract
Speech is not language. But without speech/sign there would be neither language nor mostly human thought. A divide between an internal wordless system and an external instrumental one for speech/sign is conceptually and empirically problematic; and evolutionarily costly. Such a divide is however assumed by otherwise opposite trends (represented, say, by Tomasello and Chomsky). An alternative view where speech and rational thought are linguistic seems better supported by facts on words, modalities (spoken and signed) and brain correlates. Evolutionarily, this view leads to place a vocal learning capacity, which is exceptional among primates, as central in language evolution. Such a capacity, run by a powerful computational system, provided Sapiens with a platform for the invention of words.
Abstract
Speech is not language. But without speech/sign there would be neither language nor mostly human thought. A divide between an internal wordless system and an external instrumental one for speech/sign is conceptually and empirically problematic; and evolutionarily costly. Such a divide is however assumed by otherwise opposite trends (represented, say, by Tomasello and Chomsky). An alternative view where speech and rational thought are linguistic seems better supported by facts on words, modalities (spoken and signed) and brain correlates. Evolutionarily, this view leads to place a vocal learning capacity, which is exceptional among primates, as central in language evolution. Such a capacity, run by a powerful computational system, provided Sapiens with a platform for the invention of words.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Biolinguistic investigations on the Language Faculty vii
-
Section 1. Language faculty
- The biolinguistics program 3
- Symbol taxonomy in biophonology 41
- The centrality of speech for human thought 55
- Electroencephalographic evidence of vowels computation and representation in human auditory cortex 79
-
Section 2. Language variation
- Feature values and the expression of variation 103
- Object pronouns in the evolution of Romanian 125
- The interplay of silent nouns and (reduced) relatives in Malay adjectival modification 145
-
Section 3. Language (acquisition and) impairments
- A study on an alleged case of Spanish SLI and the founder effect 169
- Syntax and its interfaces at the low and high ends of the autism spectrum 195
- Communication in schizophrenia, between pragmatics, cognition, and social cognition 213
- Author index 235
- Subject index 237
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Biolinguistic investigations on the Language Faculty vii
-
Section 1. Language faculty
- The biolinguistics program 3
- Symbol taxonomy in biophonology 41
- The centrality of speech for human thought 55
- Electroencephalographic evidence of vowels computation and representation in human auditory cortex 79
-
Section 2. Language variation
- Feature values and the expression of variation 103
- Object pronouns in the evolution of Romanian 125
- The interplay of silent nouns and (reduced) relatives in Malay adjectival modification 145
-
Section 3. Language (acquisition and) impairments
- A study on an alleged case of Spanish SLI and the founder effect 169
- Syntax and its interfaces at the low and high ends of the autism spectrum 195
- Communication in schizophrenia, between pragmatics, cognition, and social cognition 213
- Author index 235
- Subject index 237
