Open AccessBook
Gesture and the Nature of Language
TLDR
The nature of gesture, signed and spoken languages differently organized, and the origin of syntax: gesture as name and relation are discussed.Abstract:
This book proposes a radical alternative to dominant views of the evolution of language, and in particular the origins of syntax. The authors argue that manual and vocal communication developed in parallel, and that the basic elements of syntax are intrinsic to gesture. They draw on evidence from areas such as primatology, anthropology, and linguistics, to present a groundbreaking account of the notion that language emerged through visible bodily action. They go on to examine the implications of their findings for linguistic theory and theories of the biological evolution of the capacity for language. Written in a clear and accessible style, Gesture and the Nature of Language will be indispensable reading for all those interested in the origins of language.read more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
The mirror neuron system.
TL;DR: The mirror-neuron mechanism appears to play a fundamental role in both action understanding and imitation as mentioned in this paper, which is at the basis of human culture and ability to learn by imitation.
Journal ArticleDOI
Language within our grasp
TL;DR: It is proposed here that an observation/execution matching system provides a necessary bridge from'doing' to'communicating', as the link between actor and observer becomes a link between the sender and the receiver of each message.
Journal ArticleDOI
From monkey-like action recognition to human language: an evolutionary framework for neurolinguistics.
TL;DR: It is argued that the progression from protosign and protospeech to languages with full-blown syntax and compositional semantics was a historical phenomenon in the development of Homo sapiens, involving few if any further biological changes.
MonographDOI
The Evolution of Language
TL;DR: The authors exploit newly available massive natu- ral language corpora to capture the language as a language evolution phenomenon. But their work is limited to a subset of the languages in the corpus.
Journal ArticleDOI
The frame/content theory of evolution of speech production.
TL;DR: The new role of Broca's area and its surround in human vocal communication may have derived from its evolutionary history as the main cortical center for the control of ingestive processes.