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- Title
The precedence of syntax in the rapid emergence of human language in evolution as defined by the integration hypothesis.
- Authors
Nóbrega, Vitor A.; Shigeru Miyagawa
- Abstract
Our core hypothesis is that the emergence of human language arose very rapidly from the linking of two pre-adapted systems found elsewhere in the animal world--an expression system, found, for example, in birdsong, and a lexical system, suggestively found in non-human primate calls (Miyagawa et al., 2013, 2014). We challenge the view that language has undergone a series of gradual changes--or a single preliminary protolinguistic stage--before achieving its full character. We argue that a full-fledged combinatorial operation Merge triggered the integration of these two pre-adapted systems, giving rise to a fully developed language. This goes against the gradualist view that there existed a structureless, protolinguistic stage, in which a rudimentary proto-Merge operation generated internally flat words. It is argued that compounds in present-day language are a fossilized form of this prior stage, a point which we will question.
- Subjects
LANGUAGE research; ANIMAL calls; LINGUISTICS research; ANIMAL behavior; HUMAN-animal relationships
- Publication
Frontiers in Psychology, 2015, Vol 6, p1
- ISSN
1664-1078
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00271