Journal
PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
Volume 367, Issue 1599, Pages 2141-2151Publisher
ROYAL SOC
DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2012.0116
Keywords
evolution of language; gesture; gestural origins; hominin cooperation; cooperation and communication
Categories
Ask authors/readers for more resources
This paper defends a gestural origins hypothesis about the evolution of enhanced communication and language in the hominin lineage. The paper shows that we can develop an incremental model of language evolution on that hypothesis, but not if we suppose that language originated in an expansion of great ape vocalization. On the basis of the gestural origins hypothesis, the paper then advances solutions to four classic problems about the evolution of language: (i) why did language evolve only in the hominin lineage? (ii) why is language use an evolutionarily stable form of informational cooperation, despite the fact that hominins have diverging evolutionary interests? (iii) how did stimulus independent symbols emerge? (iv) what were the origins of complex, syntactically organized symbols? The paper concludes by confronting two challenges: those of testability and of explaining the gesture-to-speech transition; crucial issues for any gestural origins hypothesis
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available