Routes to Language

    

 

       

 

Glossary

EFFECT

Description

Capacity

A+RELATIONSHIP+B COGNITION

I have models in my mind of the dominance relationships between other individuals in the group. As there is a stable linear hierarchy in the group, the relationships are largely invariant, so the binding between the imaged individuals and their relationship with each other is strong and largely fixed.

Linear Social Cognition

A-RELATIONSHIP-B COGNITION

I have models in my mind about the relationships between other individuals in the group. The reverse-dominance cultural environment means that my relationships are contingent and variable, so the binding of the relationship to the imaged individuals is weak and variable.

Social Cognition

A-RELATIONSHIP-B GRAMMAR

A-Relationship-B Grammar: I am expressing my A-Relationship-B cognition verbally, so I need a simple syntactic system with which to do this.

Protolanguage 2

A-RELATIONSHIP-B-BY-C COGNITION

By tagging a received A-Relationship-B model with its source, I can measure it against my existing knowledge to identify C's stance towards A and B. This enhances my knowledge of the group social relationships, and allows me to extract useful empirical data from an utterance that is, essentially, opinion.

Identifying Opinion

A-RELATIONSHIP-B-BY-C GRAMMAR

I am expressing my A-Relationship-B-by-C cognition verbally, so I need a more complex syntactic system with which to do this.

Awareness of Own Reputation

ABSENT REFERENCE

I am referring to items and events which are within my experience but not within yours. You have to accept their reality to me to be able to interpret my utterance.

Awareness of the Unseen

ABSTRACTION

I have to be able to see another individual as separate from my relationships with that other, so that I can model the relationship between that other and third parties.

Social Cognition

AWARENESS OF SELF

I am a third party in the modelling of others, so A-Relationship-B constructs offered to me may include me as A or B. To incorporate these offered constructs I have to be able to model myself as a third party.

Awareness of Self

AWARENESS OF SELFNESS

By modelling myself as a third party, I am able to see my self from an external perspective. This carries with it all the concomitant advantages and disadvantages of Machiavellian Intelligence, but applied reflexively.

Egalitarian Awareness

COMPLEX LANGUAGE 1

Neanderthal and Denisovan genes have been discovered in modern H.sapiens genomes; which means that we interbred and produced viable offspring which were able to compete successfully with "pure" H.sapiens. As communication is such an important marker of a successful H.sapiens, it is very likely that they had a communication system remarkably similar to our own.

Complex Language 1

COMPLEX LANGUAGE 2

Language is, even today, a developing system. Complex Language 2 (effectively, Complex Language 1 plus recursion) represents the end of the story being told here, but it should not be seen as a complete, terminal state for language.

Complex Language 2

DIFFERENTIATION

The second of the four features of language. The "atoms" of cognition can have different roles in the construction of thoughts. In the minimal case of language (as conceived here), "words" can represent entities or relationships between entities.

Joint Attention & Deixis

DISPASSIONATE SELF

By modelling myself as a third party, I can treat my self as I treat other third parties.

Egalitarian Awareness

EXTRINSIC COMMUNICATION

A system of communication which allows external meanings about the world to be shared. These meanings are mostly facts, and truth-values are therefore significant.

Protolanguage 1

EXTRINSIC SIGNALLING

A signalling system where a particular signifier always signifies the same thing; for example, the vervet monkey snake, eagle and leopard calls. The signal is made as a response to a stimulus (the predator has been seen).

Meaningful Signals

FIRST PERSON

Probably the last of the language "voices" to emerge. Allows me to represent my self in utterances made to others.

Projection of Self

GRAMMATICAL HIERARCHY

The third of the four features of language. The "atoms" of cognition can be combined to make composite units which behave in many ways like "atoms".

Identifying Opinion

GRAMMATICALIZATION

The process of sharing the simplest grammatical utterances (containing segmentation and differentiation, but not hierarchy or recursion) creates a condition where the meaning in the shared utterance has to be negotiated between sender and receiver. This negotiation allows the adoption of new “words”, and new types of words, by the receiver. It also allows the adoption of new grammatical forms in which the new types of words are useful.

Negotiation toward Meaning

INTRINSIC COMMUNICATION

See COMPLEX LANGUAGE 1

Complex Language 1

JOINT ENTERPRISE

The capacity to work together on a project that no single individual could accomplish.

Joint Ventures

LARGE BRAINS

Humans have brains which are large in absolute terms, remarkably large in comparison to our size, and extremely costly: 20% of our body's energy intake is used by the brain alone. The reasons for the existence of this costly organ are key to understanding human evolution.

Increased Encephalisation

LARGE SOCIAL GROUPS

A particular feature of humans is their capacity to tolerate large groups of conspecifics. This is unusual in nature, and is usually a marker of eusociality. However, humans have reproductive autonomy, they do not rely on a small group of fertile relatives to get their genes into the future.

Larger Social Groups

LEXIS

"Words" represent a relationship between phonology and meaning. In this they differ from "atoms" of cognition, which have no phonology.

Semanticity

MODALITY

Utterances can have conditionality (they are true if…); they can have perspective (they are true to some individuals and not others); they can have fictionality (they are true only within a non-existent scenario). If one type of modality is possible for a species, all types are possible.

Awareness of Own Reputation

NESTED FUNCTIONALITY

Being able to nest a function inside another function is a necessary precursor to recursion. Arithmetic is the process of nesting quantities inside another quantity (e.g. 1+2=3), and therefore has nested functionality. This capacity has now been demonstrated in rhesus macaques.

Simple Arithmetic

PHYSICAL CULTURE

A species which is able to transmit physical survival skills between individuals by teaching and learning has a physical culture. The transmission of termite fishing between female chimpanzees and their offspring is an example of this.

Teaching and Learning of Skills

RECURSION (MERGE)

The fourth of the four features of language. Hierarchy can occur at multiple levels: composite units can contain composite units. The Hauser-Chomsky-Fitch (2002) proposal sees recursion as a language-related evolutionary event, but this proposal sees it as emergent from hierarchy and attribution of received utterances, with a genetic explanation outside of language.

Recursive Social Cognition

RELATIONSHIP+A COGNITION

I have models in my mind of my relationships with other individuals in the group. As the models represent my actual relationships, the binding between the imaged individual and my relationship with them is strong and largely fixed.

Machiavellian Intelligence

RELATIONSHIP-A COGNITION

I have models in my mind of my relationships with other individuals in the group. The reverse-dominance cultural environment means that my relationships are contingent and variable, so the binding between the imaged individual and my relationship to them is weak and variable.

Joint Ventures

SECOND PERSON

Probably the second of the language "voices" to emerge. Allows me to represent the receiver as a special class of "they". This permits referential dialogue, and "talking to" as an enhancement to "talking about".

Recognition of Receiver

SEGMENTATION

The first of the four features of language. Utterances are composed of "atoms" of cognition, they are not monolithic correspondences between thought and signal.

Joint Attention and Deixis

SELF-MODELLING

See AWARENESS OF SELF.

Awareness of Self

SEMIOTICS

Joint attention allows the emergence of shared representation. This, in turn, requires a shared convention of representation.

Joint Attention and Deixis

SHARED SOCIAL CALCULUS

The sharing of A-Relationship-B cognitive models. Because these models are opinion rather than external facts, the sharing of them changes the communication system from an extrinsic truth-based system of facts to an intrinsic system of viewpoints and ideas.

Sharing of Models

SINGLE-ARGUMENT GRAMMAR

I can express simple object-action, object-qualifier and action-qualifier constructs. To do this I need a segmented and differentiated communication system.

Protolanguage 1

SOCIAL ARITHMETIC

See RELATIONSHIP+A COGNITION.

Machiavellian Intelligence

SOCIAL CALCULUS

See A-RELATIONSHIP-B COGNITION.

Social Cognition

SOCIAL CULTURE

A species which is able to transmit social conventions between individuals has a social culture. The social conventions do not directly enhance individual fitness, but they create social inclusion for the individual, which indirectly enhances their fitness. Burial practices provide an example of this.

Affective Teaching and Learning

TEMPORALITY OF FUTURE

Being able to reference events which are in the past, coupled with modality, allows reference to events which are yet to happen. All that is needed is a social convention to identify future events.

Awareness of Future Modality

TEMPORALITY OF PAST

Being able to refer to events which are not present means being able to refer to events which are not current. All that is needed is a social convention of how to differentiate current non-present events from non-current non-present events.

Second-order Unseen Awareness

THIRD PERSON

Probably the first of the language "voices" to emerge. Allows me to represent others as entities, initially in my cognition and later in my signalling.

Social Cognition