Abstract
Language capacity unites all existent human populations. Therefore its morphogenetic field must have originated with the species Homo sapiens (ca. 200,000 y BP). We assume that at the origin this field was only poorly expressed (via some protolanguage), but unfolded with the rise of human cultures (technologies, art, myth and other symbolic media). This development occurred in the last 100,000 y. In this context, Thom’s criticism of evolutionary theory in Darwinian terms can be reconsidered. He accepts the Darwinian principles but adds the role of morphogenesis and individuation. This article sketches the morphogenesis of basic sentence (argument) structures applying results of morphodynamics and the individuation of linguistic tools in phonemics, lexicon and grammar.
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Notes
- 1.
Published first in the Revista di Biologia, 76 (1) and then again in Thom (1990: 599–605) and named: “Darwin cent ans après”.
- 2.
The last surviving non-human species was the late Neanderthal man in Europe (extinct between 37,000 and 30,000 y. BP), i.e. before the maximum of the last ice age (25,000–20,000 y. BP).
- 3.
Thus, Neanderthal individuals seem to have mixed with individuals of the early Homo sapiens when they met around 100,000 y. BP, but mixture in Europe after 40,000 when Homo sapiens migrated massively into Europe was rare and did not prevent the extinction of the Neanderthals (possibly their offspring had health problems and rarely survived).
- 4.
In a study on genetically identical mice Freund et al. (2013) showed that individual differences increase with age due in “cumulative roaming entropy” and “nonshared environment” (ibidem: 756). These behavioral differences have a neural correlate in the hippocampus and are thus of a biological nature. The question is if and how such differences may be genetically transmitted; they may have an impact on survival and reproduction.
- 5.
- 6.
Currently a comparable although different language capacity is assumed for Homo neanderthalensis. It allowed for a restricted communication with Homo sapiens populations if they met in a cooperative context. Current genetic analyses showed traces of Neanderthal genes in the populations, which had left Africa, probably introduced around 100,000 y. BP into the genome of Homo sapiens.
- 7.
- 8.
We start with rather complex schemata. Naturally a schema of frontier and the transition of frontier lines preceded the grasp schema, see for a short summary of catastrophe theoretical semantics Wildgen (2005). It may already be observed in the behaviour of chimpanzees who control their territory and attack other chimpanzees near the frontier line in order to prevent their intruding. The semiotic relevance of this schema was discussed (in relation to evolution) in an article by Per Aage Brandt: The Principle of the Wall—Or How Space (may have) Shaped Semiosis. A Note (download from: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2304745 ).
- 9.
In Bickerton (1984) a language bioprogram is proposed in the spirit of Chomsky’s hypothesis of some inborn grammar (“universal grammar”). We reject such mechanistic devices and assume that the biologically fixed capacities are rather cognitive and behavioural than linguistic (in a narrow sense implied by the term grammar). Therefore, a topologico-dynamic basis is more plausible than low dimensional (linear) algebraic models (generative grammars) discussed by Chomsky.
- 10.
Translation by the author: “The elaboration of means in view of the realization of some goal depends (in technological and biological contexts) on a “cultural” situation existing before, and on a certain amount of stability of the external conditions.”
- 11.
The “dictator” in ancient Rome was only accredited his power for a restricted time in situations of extreme endangerment. In the movie Leviathan directed by Andrey Zvyagintsev and presented at the Cannes festival in 2014, Vladimir Putin is indirectly associated with the figure of Leviathan.
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Wildgen, W. (2015). The Cultural Individuation of Human Language Capacity and the Morphogenesis of Basic Argument-Schemata. In: Sarti, A., Montanari, F., Galofaro, F. (eds) Morphogenesis and Individuation. Lecture Notes in Morphogenesis. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-05101-7_5
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