Article published in:
Holophrasis vs Compositionality in the Emergence of ProtolanguageEdited by Michael A. Arbib and Derek Bickerton
[Interaction Studies 9:1] 2008
► pp. 169–176
But how did protolanguage actually start?
Derek Bickerton | University of Hawaii
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.
Keywords: language, protolanguage, human evolution, functional reference, animal communication, compositionality, paleoanthropology, holophrasis
Published online: 07 March 2008
https://doi.org/10.1075/is.9.1.12bic
https://doi.org/10.1075/is.9.1.12bic
Cited by
Cited by 1 other publications
Arbib, Michael A., Katja Liebal & Simone Pika
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