Arbitrary signs and the emergence of language
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Denis Bouchard
Abstract
The question of the origin of language is difficult to answer since language is involved in a complex way in all human activities. Yet it can be answered if we concentrate on the design properties of the linguistic sign and how they relate to recently discovered properties that are unique to the human brain. Human language is the result of a cascade of consequences from a suite of minute neurological changes that give some human neuronal systems a new “representational” capacity. These changes make sense in evolution, and there is empirical evidence for them. These uniquely human systems of neurons have the capacity to operate offline for input as well as output (Hurley 2008): they can be triggered not only by external events stimulating our perceptual systems but also by brain-internal events; they can also be activated while inhibiting output to any external (motoric) system. These Offline Brain Systems are not specifically designed for language but they provide the crucial property that made it possible for further innovations to occur that led to language; they coincidentally allowed mental states corresponding to elements of the perceptual and conceptual substances of language to meet in our brains to form Saussurean signs. Recursivity derives from the self-organization triggered by the chaotic system that emerged, and required no innovation in the human lineage. Keywords: Offline neuronal systems; Saussurean signs; self-organization; recursivity
Abstract
The question of the origin of language is difficult to answer since language is involved in a complex way in all human activities. Yet it can be answered if we concentrate on the design properties of the linguistic sign and how they relate to recently discovered properties that are unique to the human brain. Human language is the result of a cascade of consequences from a suite of minute neurological changes that give some human neuronal systems a new “representational” capacity. These changes make sense in evolution, and there is empirical evidence for them. These uniquely human systems of neurons have the capacity to operate offline for input as well as output (Hurley 2008): they can be triggered not only by external events stimulating our perceptual systems but also by brain-internal events; they can also be activated while inhibiting output to any external (motoric) system. These Offline Brain Systems are not specifically designed for language but they provide the crucial property that made it possible for further innovations to occur that led to language; they coincidentally allowed mental states corresponding to elements of the perceptual and conceptual substances of language to meet in our brains to form Saussurean signs. Recursivity derives from the self-organization triggered by the chaotic system that emerged, and required no innovation in the human lineage. Keywords: Offline neuronal systems; Saussurean signs; self-organization; recursivity
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Preface vii
- Introduction ix
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Part 1. General perspectives and issues on language origins
- Historical, Darwinian, and current perspectives on the origin(s) of language 3
- The origin of language as seen by eighteenth-century philosophy 31
- Cognitive and social aspects of language origins 53
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Part 2. At the roots of language
- Reconstructed fossil vocal tracts and the production of speech 75
- Paleoanthropology and language 129
- Material culture and language 147
- Gestural theory of the origins of language 171
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Part 3. Communication and language origins
- Primate communication 187
- FoxP2 and vocalization 211
- Brain lateralization and the emergence of language 237
- Sensorimotor constraints and the organization of sound patterns 257
- Symbol grounding and the origin of language 279
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Part 4. Linguistic views on language origins
- Sound patterns and conceptual content of the first words 301
- Brave new words 333
- On the origin of Grammar 379
- Arbitrary signs and the emergence of language 407
- On the relevance of pidgins and creoles in the debate on the origins of language 441
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Part 5. Computational modeling of language origins
- Modeling cultural evolution 487
- How language emerges in situated embodied interactions 505
- Emergence of communication and language in evolving robots 533
- Evolving a bridge from praxis to language 555
- Index 579
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Preface vii
- Introduction ix
-
Part 1. General perspectives and issues on language origins
- Historical, Darwinian, and current perspectives on the origin(s) of language 3
- The origin of language as seen by eighteenth-century philosophy 31
- Cognitive and social aspects of language origins 53
-
Part 2. At the roots of language
- Reconstructed fossil vocal tracts and the production of speech 75
- Paleoanthropology and language 129
- Material culture and language 147
- Gestural theory of the origins of language 171
-
Part 3. Communication and language origins
- Primate communication 187
- FoxP2 and vocalization 211
- Brain lateralization and the emergence of language 237
- Sensorimotor constraints and the organization of sound patterns 257
- Symbol grounding and the origin of language 279
-
Part 4. Linguistic views on language origins
- Sound patterns and conceptual content of the first words 301
- Brave new words 333
- On the origin of Grammar 379
- Arbitrary signs and the emergence of language 407
- On the relevance of pidgins and creoles in the debate on the origins of language 441
-
Part 5. Computational modeling of language origins
- Modeling cultural evolution 487
- How language emerges in situated embodied interactions 505
- Emergence of communication and language in evolving robots 533
- Evolving a bridge from praxis to language 555
- Index 579
