0147 In hominin evolution, conventionalization is built into the use of hand talk.  Hand talk goes with joint attention.  Joint attention is an adaptation to sociogenesis. Sociogenesis is the human niche.

0148 How does this fit into Saussure’s paradigm?

If the interventional sign-object (SO_i) and the specifying sign-vehicle (SV_s) may be classified as parole, or “talk”, then the remainder of the three-level interscope may be associated with langue, or “language”.

Here is the resulting figure.

0149 The above figure plays into chapter four, titled “Ontogenic origins”, and chapter six, titled “The Grammatical Dimension”.  

Once parole and langue satisfy the criteria of two systems of differences, then hand talk meets Saussure’s definition of language, as two related systems of differences.

With speech-alone talk, the relation is arbitrary.  Formant frequencies for any particular spoken word are arbitrarily associated to a particular way of decoding the word and placing it in the slot for species impressa_2a. 

In contrast, with hand talk, each gesture-word carries the natural sign qualities of icons and indexes, so the specifying sign-vehicle is decoded in ways that picture and point to its referent.  I call the relation, “motivated”, instead of “arbitrary”.

0150 Tomasello spends a good deal of time discussing the issue of grammar.

To me, the question boils down to the cultivation of symbolic operations among elements within a symbolic order.

Symbolic order pertains to parole, in so far as each gestural word becomes more and more distinct from other gestural words.  Symbolic order speeds recognition.

Symbolic order pertains to langue, in that each three-level interscope must be distinct.  This is a tall order.  Grammarpackages statements in order to assist the specifying sign (which favors icons and indexes), exemplar sign (which favors rational judgments) and the subsequent interventional sign (which expresses a conviction, since hand talk cannot picture or point to the elements of judgment, much less the triadic relation that constitutes judgment).

0151 No wonder Tomasello is so wound up about grammar.  Grammar is like a knot that keeps tying itself into a new knot, even while the inquirer is trying to untie it.

Complete sentences (SO_i) craft impressions (SV_s).

Well-crafted sentences produce impressions_2a, that trigger perceptions_2b, that call to mind convictions_2c.

Just ask Rhett and Rick…

0152  … if you can get their joint attention.

Here is a picture of the pair, as one hand talks to the other, saying “[SNAKE][THERE]”.

0153 This raises the very important question concerns why Rhett and Rick engage in joint attention in the first place.

Joint attention is the adaptation.  Sociogenesis labels the corresponding niche.

0154 In order to appreciate the “socio” of “sociogenesis”, I turn to Comments on John Gowlett, Clive Gamble, and Robin Dunbar’s Book (2014) Thinking Big (by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues).  Dunbar introduces a breakthrough model in evolutionary anthropology.  The brain size to body size ratio associates to group size.  Great apes and southern apes have a ratio that corresponds to a group of 50 (a band).

In addition to this, these three anthropologists suggest that there is some sort of structural pattern within the band (50) that magnifies or reduces by a factor of three.  They call the structures, “social circles”.  The smaller social circles are family (5), intimates (5), and teams (15).  The larger social circles (which exist in the realm of potential for the southern apes) are community (150), mega-band (500) and tribe (1500).

0155 So, the answer to the question, asking “Why are Rhett and Rick engaging in joint attention in the first place?”, must concern social circles.

0156 Thinking Big (2014) comes out six years after Origins of Human Communication (2008).  The fact that both books appear within a decade of one another shows the ferment in the discipline of evolutionary anthropology.

0157 “Ontogeny” is in the title of chapter four.

“Ontogeny” is an awkward term.

In philosophy, the discipline of “ontology” studies the “logos” (or “word”) of “ontos”.  Ontos?  Ontos is esse_ce, that is, being substantiated.  Yes, that is “essence without the ‘n'”.  The only way to figure out esse_ce (being substantiated) is by considering essence, (substantiated form).  This leads to a question, asking, “What discipline studies the nature of essence?”

Who knows the answer to that?

How about aesthetics, the art of appreciation?

0158 Esse_ce and essence participate in Aristotle’s hylomorphe, which happens to exemplify Peirce’s category of secondness.  Secondness consists of two contiguous real elements.  For Aristotle, the two real elements are matter (or, for relations, being) and form.  The contiguity is placed in brackets for clear notation.  I select the word, [substance], as a technical term describing the contiguity between being and form.

Here is a picture.

0159 So, “ontogeny”, must mean “the genesis of being”, or something like that.  Ontogeny associates with esse_ce and corresponds to the innate development of a phenotype.  Since the human phenotype is designed to internalize culture and traditions, disentangling the innate from the cultural is most difficult, except for newborns and infants.  Cognitive psychologists study the mental development of these tempermental, yet fascinating, creatues.

0160 “Phylogeny” is in the title of chapter five.

“Phylogeny” is less problematic.

Phylogeny associates to natural history.  For biologists, the Darwinian paradigm says, “Descent with modification”. Through natural selection, modifications become adaptations.  Adaptations emerge from (and situate) a niche.  A niche is a potential independent of the adapting species.

Tomasello identifies a key adaptation characteristic of humans that is not found in the great apes (and presumably, the last common ancestor between the chimpanzees and humans).  That adaptation is joint attention.  Shared intentionalityemerges from (and situates) sociogenesis, the ability to form societies.

0161 Thus, chapters four and five give me the two real elements in Tomasello’s hylomorphe, pictured below.

I wonder whether the intrepid reader can find a another label for the term, “substance”.

0162 In the chapter on ontogenetic origins, the reader encounters the crux of hominin communication, the ability to inform, request and share content (that is, information)_2c, in the normal context of a common cognitive ground_3c, on the basis of mutual expectations_1c.

0163 To me, this associates to the perspective-level of the scholastic picture of the way humans think, now adjusted for Tomasello’s insights.

Here is a picture.

0164 The perspective level corresponds to the sign-object and the sign-interpretant of the exemplar sign (SO_e and SI_e).   The sign-vehicle (SV_e) is perception.

The exemplar sign arises from a specifying sign and leads to an interventional sign.

I conclude that, in terms of phenotype, humans are innately prepared to embody exemplar sign-relations.

0165 So, what about newborns and infants?

Oh, they must first figure out specifying signs.  They do so by experiencing the interventional signs of family and friends.  As soon as tykes express sensible interventional signs, they have mastered the art of specifying signs and are on their way to developing their own suite of exemplar signs.

On their way?

One never stops developing exemplar signs.

0166 So, that leads me to ask, “Does the above interscope serve as a label for the substance between phenotype and adaptation?  Or does the word, ‘culture’?”

0167 What are the phylogenetic origins of human communication?

0168 Tomasello works from two buckets of inquiry.

One bucket is filled with observations of great apes in the wild and in captivity.  These observations are modeled by biologists and cognitive scientists.  These species represent our last common ancestor (more or less).  The great apes do not diverge.  Our lineage does.

Biological uniformitarianism predicts that some sort of continuous line connects the last common ancestor (LCA) to ourselves.  Tomasello isolates a key feature of hominin communication that corresponds to an early adaptation.  Joint attention and shared intentionality are adaptations into sociogenesis, occurring after the genetic divergence between the chimpanzee and human lineages, around 7Myr (million of years ago).

Tomasello’s phylogenetic origins hypothesis proposes that, after this divergence, hominin cooperative behaviors become adaptive in an environment where mutual collaborative activities pay off.

0169 One question is, “When?”

A change in geological eras might do the trick.  The Pliocene era begins around 5.3Myr.  Bipedal australopithecines(southern apes) appear in the fossil record around 4.2Myr.  The adaptation of bipedalism associates to savannah and woodland environments.  Hominids walk from one area rich in seasonal resources to another.  Do some of the species within this genus develop mutually collaborative activities?

That is…, “Do some australopithecines develop teams?”

I suspect so.

0170 Communication is one aspect of these mutual collaborative activities.

Hominin cooperative communication, what I call “hand talk”, emerges as part and parcel of the adaptation of joint attention and shared intentionality.  Hand talk evolves within each of these mutual collaborative activities.  Hand talk adapts to teams.

0171 The other bucket is filled with observations of newborns and infants at home and in psychological laboratories.  These observations are modeled by cognitive and evolutionary psychologists.  These cute little bundles of joy represent later hominins, before civilization, and maybe, before the appearance of our own species, Homo sapiens. 

Or, maybe they represent early hominins, like those australopithecines.

Perhaps that is why learning to walk is like the best thing… I mean… the best!

0172 Tomasello’s ontogenetic origins hypothesis states, more or less, “Human newborns and infants cooperate, collaborate and communicate.  They display the characteristics of shared intentionality, prior to the acquisition of language.”

0173 Soon after their first birthday, infants start to communicate cooperatively.  By three years old, they are aware of language’s normative dimension.

To me, these observations imply that the infant figures out the specifying sign by one year and is uses the interventional sign to communicate.  The exemplar sign?  Surely, the exemplar sign must be involved in the circuit of sign-processing.  Perhaps, it is crucial to hominin cooperativity.

0174 Here is a picture of Tomasello’s hylomorphe, with research into cognitive development substituting for ontogeny (phenotype) and research into the evolutionary psychology of joint attention substituting for phylogeny (adaptation).

0175 Can the substance, the contiguity between these two research programs, be labeled, “culture”?

Yes, labels can be applied to anything.

No, Tomasello’s adjustment to the scholastic interscope for how humans think seems to be a better descriptor for the substance in the above figure.