OK, CJ, I was thinking that a candidate for uniting your gestures with sound production in early human society would be hand clapping and finger snapping and other sounds produced by percussion between body parts. An enormous vocabulary could be produced sort of like Morse Code. This would include clicks produced by the mouth . Also, whistling would give a big sound field.
There might also be hitting sticks together, hitting , our favorite, stones and rocks together, and of course various drums. There were probably smoke signals. What about singing as equally important with "prose" talk at the beginning. And just all around music, with body parts and instruments, as equal with vocal chord or other mouth speech Gestures really should be extended to the whole body, full body language, ancient mime and dance as part of original "talk". Thinking about "discrete infinity", that seems maybe akin to the infinity between any two real numbers or the infinity of the infinitesimal in calculus. On 5/14/10, CeJ <jann...@gmail.com> wrote: > Merleau Ponty would have loved this, I think. > > CJ > > http://www.phonetik.uni-muenchen.de/~hoole/kurse/hs_evolution/studdertkennedygoldstein_launchingLanguage_2003.pdf > > introductory excerpt: > > 0.1 Introduction > ‘Discrete infinity’ refers to the property by which language > constructs from a few > dozen discrete elements an infinite variety of expressions of thought, > imagination and > feeling. The property ‘seems to be biologically isolated’, because it > is unique among > systems of animal communication. From another point of view, however, > it is not isolated > at all, but rather an instance of a general principle common to all > natural systems that ‘make > infinite use of finite means’ (Humboldt 1836/1999: 91), including > physics, chemistry, > genetics and language, namely, ‘the particulate principle of > self-diversifying systems’ > (Abler 1989). > > 0.2 The Particulate Principle > According to the particulate principle, the only route to unbounded > diversity of form > and function is through a combinatorial hierarchy in which discrete > elements, drawn from a > finite set, are repeatedly permuted and combined to yield larger units > higher in the hierarchy > and more diverse in structure and function than their constituents. > The particulate units in > physical chemistry include atoms, ions, and molecules, in biological > inheritance, chemical > radicals, genes and proteins, in language, gestures (as will be argued > below), segments, > syllables, words and phrases. > > A parallel between languages and genetic systems has repeatedly been remarked > by physicists (e.g. Schrödinger 1944), linguists (e.g. Jakobson 1970), > and biologists (e.g. > Jacob 1977, Pollack 1994). Jacob, for example, wrote: ‘Linguistics has > furnished genetics > with an excellent model. The image which best describes heredity is > that of a chemical > message…written…with the combination…of just four chemical radicals. The four > units…are combined and permuted infinitely, just as are the letters of > the alphabet > throughout the length of a text. As a phrase corresponds to a segment > of text so does a > gene correspond to a segment of the nucleic acid fiber’ (Jacob > 1977:187). Like Jakobson > (1970), Jacob emphasized that for such a system to work its basic > units must themselves > be devoid of meaning or function. In language, only if phonetic units > have no meaning > can they be commuted across contexts to form new words with new meanings. > Jacob went on to observe that the principle of combining discrete units to > form > successive levels of a hierarchy ‘…is not limited to language and heredity > …[but]…appears to operate in nature each time there is a question of > generating a large > diversity of structures using a restricted number of building blocks’ > (1977:188). But > Jacob did not try to explain why systems as apparently diverse as > language, physics, and > genetics converge on a common structural principle. That was left to > Abler (1989) who > first recognized correspondences among Fisher’s (1930) genetical > theory of natural > selection, the atomic theory of physical chemistry, and Humboldt’s (1836/1999) > description of language. > 3 > Fisher (1930) reasoned that if parents’ characteristics were to blend in their > offspring, they would vanish in an average; variation, critical to the > process of natural > selection, would then decrease from one generation to the next. In > fact, of course, variation > is conserved, or even increased, across generations and parental > characters lost in one > generation may reappear unmodified in the next. From such facts Fisher > (like Mendel > before him) inferred that biological inheritance was necessarily > effected by a particulate > mechanism: unbounded biological diversity can only be maintained by > permutation and > combination of discrete genetic entities. > > Abler (1989) saw that Fisher’s logic of particulate combination > applied to physics, > chemistry and language no less than to genetics. Moreover, Humboldt’s > characterization of > the language hierarchy could be extended to these other domains: all > four achieve > unbounded diversity by‘…a synthetic [i.e. combinatorial] > process…[that]…creates > something…not present per se in any of the associated constituents’ > (1836/1999:67). > Novel structures and functions arise at each level of a hierarchy > because units do not blend > and disappear, but combine as integral units to form new integral > units, whose properties are > not limited by, and cannot be predicted from, the properties of their > constituents. > We cannot derive the fire-extinguishing properties of water from the > combination of > hydrogen (which burns) and oxygen (which sustains burning), nor the > properties of proteins > from the genes that control their formation. In language we cannot > derive the meaning of a > word from the phonetic elements that compose it, nor the meaning of a > phrase from the > lexical meanings of its words without regard to their syntax. Indeed, > it is precisely because > the properties of units at each new level cannot be derived from the > properties of their > constituents that successive levels in the language hierarchy > (phonology, morphology, > syntax) are independent and subject to their own characteristic rules > of combination. > Thus, the particulate principle rationalizes and generalizes across > diverse domains > the combinatorial mechanisms and the independence of successive levels > in a hierarchy that > standard linguistic theory adopts as axioms of linguistic analysis. > The principle is a > mathematical constraint to which any system that has the property of > discrete infinity > necessarily conforms. That is why, despite their different modalities, > signed and spoken > languages arrive at analogous hierarchies of phonology (or sign > formation) and syntax > (Klima & Bellugi 1979). By assimilating language to other particulate > domains, we do not > ignore the unique properties of syntax and phonology essential to its > function. We do, > however, emphasize the roots of language in biophysics, and the > critical importance for both > lexicon and syntax of the prior evolution of phonetic capacity. > > 0.3 Discrete Phonetic Units as Conditions of a Lexicon and Syntax > > Discrete phonetic units of some kind must have emerged relatively early in the > evolution of language. For, as Bickerton remarks, ‘…syntax could not > have come into > existence until there was a sizable vocabulary whose units could be > organized into complex > structures’ (1995:51). And a sizable vocabulary could not have come > into existence until > holistic vocalizations had been differentiated into categories of > discrete phonetic units that > could be organized into words. A critical early step into language > therefore was (as it still is) > the breakthrough into words, or symbolic verbal reference, by means of > a particulate > phonetics (Studdert-Kennedy 1998, 2000). > 4 > Less often remarked, though no less important, syntax could also not > have come into > existence until there was a code, a phonetic form, for short-term > storage of words, > independently of their meaning and syntactic function, during > preparation of an utterance by > a speaker and comprehension of an utterance by a listener. Independent > phonetic segments, > devoid of meaning, are indeed taken for granted by virtually every > approach to the evolution > of syntax. Berwick (1998), for example, in his account of the > development of hierarchical > syntactic concatenation of words by the operator ‘Merge’ in the > Minimalist framework starts > his derivation with a ‘bag’ of unordered words, each marked by > independent phonetic, > formal and semantic features. Kirby (2000), for another example, > models the emergence of > syntax from ‘holistic’ utterances associated with decomposable > meanings. His initial > utterances are semantically holistic, but consist ‘physically’ of > discrete symbols, randomly > concatenated into strings of ‘phonetic gestures’. Thus, a necessary condition > of > compositional syntax (discrete phonetic units) is included in the > initial conditions: > compositionality can only emerge, because ‘holistic’ utterances > readily fractionate along the > fault lines of their discrete components. Similarly, Wray (2000), > deriving words from > holistic utterances as a first step into syntax, assumes that > ‘…arbitrary phonetic > representation developed not in the service of words, but of complete, > [semantically] holistic > utterances…long before words or grammar appeared’ (293). Thus, > phonetic breakpoints > between portions of a semantically holistic utterance (portions that, > in Kirby’s and Wray’s > models, eventually become words, if they happen to correlate with > presupposed breakpoints > in the field of reference) are built into the utterance. > > Where, then, do these phonetic breakpoints come from? What is the physical > basis > for phonetic segments? The standard units, consonants and vowels, will > not do, because they > and their descriptive features are purely linguistic and therefore > precisely what an > evolutionary account must explain. What we require is a prelinguistic > unit of motor action > that takes on linguistic form and function as it is put to communicative use. > > _______________________________________________ > Marxism-Thaxis mailing list > Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu > To change your options or unsubscribe go to: > http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis > _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
