Action to Language via the Mirror Neuron System: The role of vocal tract gestural action units in understanding the evolution of phonology

Language can be viewed as a structuring of cognitive units that can be transmitted among individuals for the purpose of communicating information. Cognitive units stand in specific and systematic relationships with one another, and linguists are interested in the characterization of these units and the nature of these relationships. Both can be examined at various levels of granularity. It has long been observed that languages exhibit distinct patterning of units in syntax and in phonology. This distinction, a universal characteristic of language, is termed duality of patterning (Hockett, 1960). Syntax refers to the structuring of words in sequence via hierarchical organization, where words are meaningful units belonging to an infinitely expandable set. But words also are composed of structured cognitive units. Phonology structures a small, closed set of recombinable, non-meaningful units that compose words (or signs, in the case of signed languages). It is precisely the use of a set of non-meaningful arbitrary discrete units that allows word creation to be productive. 1 In this chapter we outline a proposal that views the evolution of syntax and of phonology as arising from different sources and ultimately converging in a symbiotic relationship. Duality of patterning forms the intellectual basis for this proposal. Grasp and other manual gestures in early hominids are, as Arbib (Chapter 1, this volume) notes, well suited to provide a link from the iconic to the symbolic. Critically, the iconic aspects of manual gestures lend them a meaningful aspect that is critical to evolution of a system of symbolic units. However, we will argue that, given duality of patterning, phonological evolution crucially requires the emergence of effectively non-meaningful combinatorial units. We suggest that vocal tract action gestures are well suited to play a direct role in phonological evolution because, as argued by Studdert-Kennedy (2002a), they are

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