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Title: | From primate to human in two easy steps |
Author: | Emonds, Joseph Embley |
Document type: | Conference paper (English) |
Source document: | Evolution of Literature: Legacies of Darwin in European Cultures. 2011, vol. 152, p. 51-72 |
ISSN: | 0929-6999 (Sherpa/RoMEO, JCR) |
ISBN: | 978-90-420-3397-9 |
Abstract: | Several properties unique to human language arguably derive from 'Duality': two superimposed combinatorial systems, phonology and syntax. flowever, the discreteness in both systems is generally overlooked. Syntax, a human language 'trademark,' is strangely based on exactly those discrete categories plausibly present in primate vision, possibly primate cognition's only discrete categories. A first evolutionary step projected these discrete categories out of the 'here and now' into a computational screen. A second step dissociated the phonology atoms from meaning, leading to large lexicons and referential displacement. |
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