Windows On Language Evolution: How Are They Constructed?

Rudolf P Botha

doi:10.5774/35-0-9

Abstract

The evolution of language, I have shown elsewhere (Botha, 2003, pp. 1-5), has for a long time been considered a phenomenon about which there is a paucity of direct evidence. An increasing number of scholars, consequently, has attempted to discover what language evolution involved by studying other phenomena about which there is a sufficiently large body of direct evidence. As explained in (Botha, 2004a), the latter phenomena have, metaphorically speaking, been said to offer windows on language evolution. Thus, prehistoric stone tools and art, (fragments) of ancestral skulls, pidgin languages, the language of very young children, motherese, the homesigns created by deaf children of hearing parents, the language of agramamtic aphasics and so on have been accorded such window status.

Highlights

In his delightful essay Fenestralia, Max Beerbohm argues that windows are objects of great virtue:"There is much virtue in a window
Second: more concretely, I will try to convey something of the "feel" of the kind of spadework that a particular one of these aspects would call for if one attempted to use the homesigns created by deaf children of hearing parents as a window on language evolution
On Goldin-Meadow's (2002, pp. 345, 368; 2003 p. 222) analysis, the two linguistic environments are similar in a second way as well

Summary

Introduction

In his delightful essay Fenestralia, Max Beerbohm argues that windows are objects of great virtue:. Second: more concretely, I will try to convey something of the "feel" of the kind of spadework that a particular one of these aspects would call for if one attempted to use the homesigns created by deaf children of hearing parents as a window on language evolution. 222) analysis, the two linguistic environments are similar in a second way as well In creating their homesigns, deaf children lack a communication partner who is willing to create a system with them. Deaf children have "language-making skills" that do not require a conventional language model – that is, linguistic experience – to develop oral or signed language These language-making skills include on Goldin-Meadow's account two kinds of things. Some of the resilient properties of these gesture systems she summarizes in the table taken over in (4) below:

The Resilient Property Words

Recursion Redundancy Reduction

Displaced Talk