Protolanguage

Resumo

Neste artigo abordo a construção imagética pré-histórica na arte rupestre destacando a problemática da definição conceitual do que é arte e o que é linguagem. Como podemos compreender os caminhos que nos levam à contextualização e decodificação dos pictogramas e petróglifos desenvolvidos pelo homo-sapiens no processo de desenvolvimento cognitivo e formatação de signos comunicativos.

Abstract

This article I discuss the prehistoric rock art at image construction highlighting the problematic of the conceptual definition of what is art and what is language. How can we understand the paths that lead us to the contextualization and decoding of the pictograms and petroglyphs developed by homo sapiens in the process of cognitive development and the formatting of communicative signs.

Many theories have been proposed to explain the origins of human language. Although there is much literature that covers a wide variety of such theories, this systematic literature review will consolidate and evaluate the evidence available that suggests pre-adaptations to language in the hominid lineage. This was done by researching and reviewing relevant literature by experts in the fields of anthropology, archaeology, psychology, linguistics and neurobiology. The findings revealed there to be many hypotheses: some rather contrasting; others that reinforced one-another, but overall there seems to be a clear divide between the exaptation and adaptation viewpoints. The conclusion that can be drawn from this review is that pre-adaptations for language (of which there are numerous) periodically came into place throughout the evolution of the hominid line. Clearly language has undergone a long and complex evolutionary journey, one which relied heavily on various adaptations to reach its current stage. Persuasive theories on language as an exaptation surely fall by the wayside once we assess how the evidence supports language as an adaptation.

Although nobody doubts today that a Ural-Altaic protolanguage is an obsolete idea there still exists some peculiar conformity between Uralic and Altaic that cannot easily be explained by simple borrowings. In this article some similarities between Turkic and Uralic pronouns are to the fore.

I discuss the processes involved in the birth of a language family: what kind of processes can happen or may have happened between the common protolanguage and the present-day languages. I do not consider the subject at a purely theoretical level, but rather through examples drawn from the Uralic studies. I name certain processes which have not (to my knowledge) previously been explicitly analyzed. I also argue that the taxonomic structure of a language family cannot be reliably reconstructed on the basis of the lexical level, and even less so if based on lexical retentions, which has been the common practice in lexicostatistic studies. I thank Juho Pystynen, Janne Saarikivi and Jussi Ylikoski, as well as two anonymous referees, for their valuable comments. 1. Divergence and convergence The primary process after the protolanguage is divergence: without divergence there is no language family. The process of divergence is normally represented by the figure of the family tree: the protolanguage splits up to daughter languages. Divergence affects all levels of language – phonology, morphology, syntax and lexicon – although not all of these have been made use of to the same extent. In certain situations the separate languages may (more or less) unite again; this process is known as convergence. (In this article I use the term only in reference to a contact-induced process; other denotations are irrelevant in this context). This occurs primarily at the lexical level. To illustrate convergence, another kind of family tree is needed: If we compare Finnish to Hungarian, the normal family tree [on the right side] is accurate enough: we see the divergence, and there is no convergence (since the languages have never been spoken in nearby areas). In illustrating the language families, the divergence tree is most often used, but under certain conditions adding the convergence level to the tree is informative [on the left side] – for example in comparing East Finnish to West Finnish, or North Estonian to South Estonian. In both the abovementioned cases the earlier divergence can still be seen at the phonological level, while the later convergence can be seen primarily at the lexical level. This factor is connected to the

Large-scale geographic variation in kinship systems may have deep roots. A number of authors now argue for an "emerging synthesis," with genetic, linguistic, and archeological findings coming together to paint a consistent picture of large-scale population spreads in prehistory. This article explores a social structural dimension of this synthesis: Major culture areas based on variation in kinship systems correspond closely—yet not perfectly—to genetic and linguistic clusters identified by other researchers. Thus it may be possible to reconstruct: (1) a set of "primary" culture areas corresponding to major population blocs and associated with ancient demic expansions and parallel transmission of genes and culture, and (2) a smaller set of overlying "secondary" culture areas of more recent origin that do not map onto genetic subdivisions and result from changes in subsistence or political economy independent of large-scale demic expansions. I also review latitudinal variation in kinship systems.

O objetivo principal deste trabalho é recontextualizar o tema da evolução da linguagem para as ciências linguísticas, uma vez que praticamente todo o trabalho sobre esse tópico até a década de 1980 foi conduzido por primatólogos, antropólogos, etólogos e especialistas de outras áreas. Para esse fim, também é necessário discutir introdutoriamente alguns tópicos em teoria evolutiva, assim como rever parte da pesquisa feita por esses pesquisadores de outras áreas. A linha de pensamento que estrutura esse trabalho foi inspirada na produção acadêmica do linguista Derek Bickerton, por conta de suas quase quatro décadas de pesquisa nas áreas de crioulização e da hipótese da protolinguagem (termo de acepção evolutiva e não filológica), assim como seu interesse ativo em promover o tópico e sua relevância dentro da linguística.

This should be a watershed book as it effectively demolishes the unwarranted assumptions that support the work of the major linguist of our times, Noam Chomsky. Instead of regarding language as predominantly computation and only secondarily as communication, as Chomsky insists, Daniel Everett offers convincing evidence that language’s main function is to communicate shared meanings within a cultural community, which allows for social learning and cultural creativity. To demonstrate this, Everett attempts to trace the origin of symbol use, which he sees as the foundation of human language, and he finds it in the distant prehistoric past amongst the far-travelled species we designate as Homo erectus. In linguistic terminology, Everett defends the constitutive view of language over the designative, preferred by cognitive scientists. After years of refusing to discuss the origin of language, Chomsky in 2002 agreed with the metaphysical speculation that it must have begun as a lucky neural mutation in a single individual (Hauser, Chomsky, & Fitch 2002). Everett presents a very strong case for slow cultural invention among many individuals as the impetus for language, but his certainty about symbol use among H. erectus is left on much less solid ground.

Abstract: More than ten years ago I presented my opinion and my doubts concerning the Turkic origin of the Slavonic word *baranъ ‘ram’. They constituted part of a longer study (Stachowski 2005: 438–441) in which other words were also discussed but none of them appeared in the title of the paper. Consequently those remarks may have escaped the attention of interested scholars which is why I have felt impelled to explain my position in a special, more detailed paper.

Very few people know that a possibility of reconstructing protolanguages or protoforms was probably first suggested as early as in the 16th century by Miechowita while discussing the origin of the name of Hungarians and that of Yugra. Miechowita’s “Treatise on the Two Sarmatias” was once an extremely important source of knowledge of the geography and history of East Europe. Although much was written on its significance in correcting more or less unlikely information concerning these subjects his linguistic material was actually ignored. The aim of this study is to examine what was known about East European languages in the early sixteenth century.

Fodor is infamous for his radical conceptual nativism, McDowell likewise well-known for suggesting that concepts extend “all the way out” into the world and arguing against what he calls (per Sellars) The Myth of the Given: the idea
that non-conceptual percepts justify conceptual frameworks. One need not go so far as either researcher, however, in  allowing merit to their arguments. It seems we are predisposed, from the beginning of our lives, to look at the world in certain ways and not others. The world need not be “fully conceptual” to be never entirely free, for the  conceptually minded agent, of conceptual taint. It seems structured remarkably like our concepts are structured because our concepts present it that way, and our concepts present it that way because of predispositions that are substantively innate. The Protoconcept Hypothesis holds that such protoconcepts are onto- and phylogenetically prior to concepts, themselves onto- and phylogenetically prior to
(proto-)language. If that is right, then an account of language genesis and evolution requires a corresponding account for concepts and an explication of protolanguage assumes an explication of protoconcepts.

The discontinuity problem of language is a unique and unresolved issue in the field Linguistic Studies that draws attention to the monumental chasm between the naming of individual objects versus the evolutionary leap to the differentiated grammatical complexity of human speech. Current research on the problem has left contemporary linguistic theorists at a loss when attempting to explain this seemingly insurmountable conundrum. This problem, however, when viewed through the lens of developmental psychology, becomes less of a problem in itself, and more of a misunderstanding of the developmental nature of different species through time. When seen from this vantage point, a clear correlation emerges between the developmental processes of language acquisition among certain species, as well as, the different developmental stages of human beings. This paper will attempt to solve the discontinuity problem by taking an interdisciplinary approach to linguistic theory, by highlighting current research in the field, and by integrating their findings into a new theory of language development and acquisition.

Der Beitrag fußt auf der Annahme, dass Verhaltensweisen, die Menschen unaufgefordert zeigen -- und Dichtung in ihren vielen Formen gehört dazu --, auf biologisch verankerte Verhaltensdispositionen zurückgehen, die dieses Verhalten zwar nicht vollständig determinieren, aber stimulieren und beeinflussen. Ein Blick auf die neuere Sprachentstehungstheorie lässt vermuten, dass in der menschlichen Sprachproduktion mehrere unterschiedliche -- d. h. zu verschiedenen Zeiten der Phylogenese und mit unterschiedlichen Funktionen evolvierte -- Sprechdispositionen zusammenwirken. Zieht man diese Dispositionen als immer noch wirksame Verhaltensantriebe in Betracht, lassen sich einige Eigenarten des lyrischen Sprechens verhaltensbiologisch plausibilisieren: die Tendenz zur semantischen Demotivierung, die thematische Dominanz von bindungsrelevanten Situationen, der implizite Adressatenbezug und der beschwörend-wortmagische Sprachgestus. Die folgenden Ausführungen werden anhand einfacher kul-tureller Prototypen lyrischen Sprechens (Totenklage, Zauberspruch) und einiger Schlaglichter auf die Lyrik Paul Celans und Ingeborg Bachmanns vor allem den impliziten Adressatenbezug zu erklären versuchen, der in der Lyriktheorie zwar vielfach beobachtet, aber noch nicht zufriedenstellend begründet worden ist, und den Beschwörungsgestus aus den imperativischen Anfängen der Sprachevolution herleiten.

The origins of human language were officially banned, for over one century, from the scientific debate among linguists. Nevertheless, this issue – which has never been forgotten in domains such anthropology, evolutionary biology or archeology, among others – has returned into the linguistics' agenda. Perhaps the most fascinating question arising from this debate has to do with how did language evolve from the primeval protolanguages and how did languages reach each inhabited place on earth. Paleo-historic and paleolinguistic evidence show us that, in the first millennia of hominization, Homo was an errant species,

This article was written by Peter and the specific examples are also his, but reflects both our views on the basic issues, which I might today summarize as a box on both their ears.  We begin by excoriating critics of Nostratic (and indeed of almost any possible progress in language classification it might seem) who in this case have cut from whole cloth yet another supposed methodological "criterion" directed against such work, claiming that supposedly one is not allowed to base a classification and a reconstruction on lower-level ones, as if (as we note) one could not posit Slavic as a branch of IE and use on work on IE Proto-Slavic reconstructions.  (I think we forgot to add that if one really wanted to one could, though it would be a horrendously painful and wholly useless exercise, replace every reference to Slavic and Proto-Slavic by references to all the attested Slavic data, making any work completely unreadable and achieving no gain.)  On the other hand, we point out and illustrate with two or three carefully selected examples just how fragile alias non-robust (tho we dont use these word) higher-level reconstructions, sensitive as they are to changes below that go on all the time as more work is being done (we again omitted I think to add that the reverse is also true).  And we show in particular that these reconstructions, offered by Dolgopolsky in some cases merely modifying Illich-Svitych, are quite doubtful--even if one accepts both Nostratic itself and even the basic theory of it as stated by those authors.  This is essentially the twin gospel I have argued in many other places.  The criticisms of Nostratic (at least up to 1995 or so when I stopped doing anything) were almost invariably mere hatchet-jobs, but the Nostratic side (and the same I think goes for several other controversial groupings, as I have argued re Tonkawa, Zuni, Haida, Coahuiltecan etc.) seem to operate in some alternate universe in which there is no such thing as margin of error, coincidence, and above all the basic problem of LOSS OF INFORMATION over length stretches of time.

Language, from its early hominin origin to now, was not primarily being used for practical purposes. We suggest that an essential function of protolanguage was to signal ‘noteworthy’ events, as humans still systematically do. Words could not be so specific as to refer to whole, non-recurring, situations. They referred to elements such as objects or locations, and the communicated event was inferred metonymically. Compositionality was achieved, without syntax, through multi-metonymy, as words referring to elements of the same situation were concatenated into proto-utterances.

'Mindful Mitochondria:  The Semiotics Elements of Primal Earth DNA'.

Prose & Art:  Stephanie Lynne Thorburn.

A paper featuring excerpts offering an overview of a forthcoming title by the author in the #AlphaOmegaCodex series.

Precis of text: -

"This book acts as a catalyst to the realisation of a new living lexical vocabulary inspired by the seminal ‘alphabets of life’.  The author has embraced the semantic and semiotic elements innate within primal human epistemological understanding of Earth’s living DNA.  Stephanie Lynne’s research unveils the primordial cultural heritage underlying the genealogy of modern genomic science. Proto- languages express faith in the divine lineage of phonetics, expressed through the ideographic semiotics of Mother Earth’s primordial DNA.

This work explores the cymatic, synergistic qualities invested in proto- linguistic alphabets, serving to fuse auditory and visual stimuli into a transformative conscious matrix.

'Mindful Mitochondria:  The Semiotic Elements  of Primal Earth DNA' illuminates the connections between language, natural science and human conceptualisation of consciousness. This research sphere is fundamentally transdisciplinary and should not be marginalised and shared solely with the spiritual healing community, but with a wider academic research audience.

In any interdisciplinary endeavour that aims to link the comparative ethology    of animals with linguistics, a crucial question is which theory of language is to serve as a starting point. The challenge lies in adequately specifying the grammar of human languages in an evolutionary perspective. The contribution of linguistics to such interdisciplinary research has often been inadequate for two reasons. First of all, current linguistic theories are usually
based on a longstanding tradition of normative grammar and an analysis of written language—hence the relevance of grammaticality and competence in Chomsky’s models. In everyday speech language use is more variable and
more context-dependent and changes-in-progress are pervasive. If we compare humans to animals, the dominant informal behaviour of humans should be the starting point for comparisons and not highly formalized behaviours
regulated by institutions like schools, academies, etc. Second, linguists have a historical bias towards logical (analytic) descriptions and lack dynamic or self-organizing models. Therefore classificatory devices and hierarchical
knowledge trees like phrase structures are emphasized, while the underlying forces, goals, benefits, trends, and changes are neglected. As a consequence, the intrinsic relation of language to holistic action patterns or to multichannel cognition (visual imagination, musical structure) is misrepresented in the standard models. Evolutionary biologists should turn instead to cognitive
linguistics (semantics) and to pragmatic and dynamic linguistics (cf. Wildgen, 1994). In an interdisciplinary cooperation between biologists, psychologists,  and linguists, one must assume that new models will be necessary that are not just versions of current types of grammars. In the following sections I will sketch the features of a model suitable for cooperative research in evolutionary biology and linguistics.

In any interdisciplinary endeavour that aims to link the comparative ethology of animals with linguistics, a crucial question is which theory of language is to serve as a starting point. The challenge lies in adequately specifying the grammar of human languages in an evolutionary perspective. The contribution of linguistics to such interdisciplinary research has often been inadequate for two reasons. First of all, current linguistic theories are usually based on a longstanding tradition of normative grammar and an analysis of written language—hence the relevance of grammaticality and competence in Chomsky’s models. In everyday speech language use is more variable and more context-dependent and changes-in-progress are pervasive. If we compare humans to animals, the dominant informal behaviour of humans should be the starting point for comparisons and not highly formalized behaviours regulated by institutions like schools, academies, etc. Second, linguists have a historical bias towar...

Two opposing accounts of early language evolution, the compositional and the holistic, have become the subject of lively debate. It has been argued that an evolving compositional protolanguage would not be useful for communication until it reaches a certain level of grammatical complexity. This paper offers a new, discourse-oriented perspective on the debate. It argues that discourse should be viewed, not as a level of language structure 'beyond the sentence', but as sequenced communicative behaviour, typically but not uniquely involving language. This provides for continuity from exchanges making use of simple communicative resources such as single words and gestures to those making use of complex grammatical conventions. Supporting evidence comes from child language and from original experiments with adults using constrained language systems. The paper shows that the utility of emerging compositional language is not dependent on some critical level of complexity.