0129 Figure 3.1 in chapter three presents a schematic of a cooperative model of human communication.  The communicator is depicted as one head.  The recipient is portrayed as a second head.  The two heads face one another.  Arrows pass from the communicator to the recipient through a gray-box labeled, norms of cooperation and cooperative reason.

“Norms of cooperation” sounds like common conceptual ground_3c and the potential of ‘mutual expectations’_1c.

“Cooperative reason” seems like making sense_3c and the potential of ‘contextualizing the situation’_1c.

0130 Here is the corresponding figure derived from this examination.

0131 What a difference!

Human communication does not proceed from communicator to recipient.  It proceeds by filling in the empty slots of the scholastic three-level interscope for how humans think.

Plus, this picture fits hand-in-glove with Tomasello’s assertion that hominin communication is conducted in hand talk, starting with pantomime and pointing.

Finally, in terms of natural history, some of the expansion of the brain, when going from the southern ape (Australopithecus) to handy man (Homo habilis) and to man-stand-tall (Homo erectus), can be attributed to adding more and more elements to this three-level interscope.

Yes, hominin brains embody more and more specifying, exemplar and interventional sign-relations.

Or something like that.

0132 Here is a good time to pause and assess Tomasello’s three interlocking hypotheses.

So far, two of them are pertinent to the examination.

0133 Plus, this business of sign-relations adds another way to look at the picture so far.