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.