the meaning of "genetic relationship"

[Isidore Dyen]

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
 
Understanding is good, a critical attitude is good, remembering that
science deals with how, not why, is better.
 
On Thu, 16 Jul 1998, bwald wrote:
 
> Isidore Dyen invites comments on the following suggestion:
>
> > There is little doubt that languages
> >originated and the question is how. The problem  has a simple structure if
> >it is set up properly. The first component is animal cries used as
> >signals. The second component is the fact that all natural languages
> >are characterized by a phonemic structure. What we need is a scenario (one
> >type of hypopthesis) that gets us from a cry-structure to a phonemic
> >structure.
>
> I think this is a variant of the theory of language origin that Jespersen
> called something like the "yowee" theory. (as opposed to the "ding-dong"
> and "bow-wow" theories).  The only hypothesis that sticks in my mind with
> regard to a transition is the quantum leap one about human neurological
> evolution intervening between cries and words/roots/grammar/etc.  Focussing
> on phonemic structure reveals the difference between cries as sounds and
> language as sounds, but I also think of Martinet's "double articulation"
> principle about language.  Cries are generally taken to be emotive, while
> vocabulary is taken as symbolic (I hesitate to use the term
> "representational").  Therefore, there is also a transition in creation of
> meanings that must be taken into account.  It is unclear that cries
> correspond in any way to most words/roots, apart from sharing vocalisation.
> In view of the relation between gestures and meanings (e.g., beckoning and
> dismissive gestures, perhaps referential pointing more generally ), the
> same logic leads to consideration of the transition between "purposeful"
> non-vocal animal gestures and human gestures that seem to have linguistic
> equivalents, e.g., "come here", "go away/keep distant", "look at that",
> etc.  To be sure, on the basis of the list of differences between human
> language and what is known of animal communication (which I forget, Hockett
> lists a bunch), of which referential displacement in human language is most
> striking, innatists deny a direct connection.  They would say that
> constructing a scenario between cries and roots/words is impossible (not to
> deny a small overlap -- because human language can represent anything that
> humans can perceive or imagine, including emotive cries).
>
> ID goes on:
> The scenario would be a lot simpler to construct if the most
> >minimal element was meaningful.
>
> I remember Swadesh in the 1960s suggesting that roots were initially
> constructed as CVC syllables (and that animal cries can be analysed into
> such units).  Abstracting from this notion, I suppose the notion of the
> syllable would have to evolve prior to phonemic inventory or structure.  I
> guess then the margins and nuclei started to be analysed as separate units.
> That's as far as I would go with that idea.
>
> ID continues:
> Since all languqages use syntactic devices
> >to reduce the ambiguity of utterances, one can take it for granted that
> >syntactic devices developed for organizing different sequences
> >of different meaningful (call them) cries.
>
> As far as we know (I think), the isolation of "meaningful cries" (anything
> like the roots of human languages) for displaced reference is already a
> major step for the theory ID hints at.  Somehow, this must be accounted
> for.  If not by neurological development which allows the evolution of
> something qualitatively different from emotive (or "here-and-now") cries,
> then what?  Similarly, syntactic sequencing remains mysterious in origin.
> ID's suggestion reminds me of Bickerton's speculative distinction between
> "pre-language" and "language", where, in "pre-language", thematic
> roles/case relations are not specified, cf. early stages of children's
> syntax, and there is a lot of "ambiguity".  Recall Lois Bloom's 1969? study
> of "mommy sock" (18 month-old or thereabout), which, according to context
> might mean "(look at) mommy's sock", "mommy, gimme a sock", "mommy has a
> sock", etc.
>
> ID continues:
> Somehow phonemes were developed
> >out of the mishmash that was going on at that stage. Perhaps you would
> >like to take a hand in adding to this scenario, or to construct an absurd
> >hypothesis of your own.
>
> The efficiency element in constructing roots and words from phonemes is
> striking, and parallels the efficiency of using syntax to construct
> utterances out of words.  I don't know what to make of that for the origins
> of language.  I can only appreciate that somehow the same kinds of logic
> are involved on the syntactic and phonotactic levels, and that somehow this
> has something to do with "reality", as humans perceive it, not just with
> analytical tricks.  I'll leave it to others to propose theories of language
> origins.  I'll just consider them to the extent that I can understand them
> -- and criticise, if necessary.
>
>