Edelman (1992: 125-6):
To trace how these abilities may have developed through the evolutionary emergence of a symbolic memory, it will be necessary to consider how speech evolved and how it is acquired. Therefore, I will first consider how the emergence of true language required the evolution of the vocal tract and the brain centres for speech production and comprehension. I then will confront an issue central to this essay: whether concepts are formed prior to speech. In doing so, I will conclude that a model of self-nonself interaction probably had to emerge prior to true speech.
Blogger Comments:
From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic theory, concepts — in Edelman's sense of self-nonself interactions — are systems of value weighted perceptual potential, and as such, must evolve even before the social semiotic systems of protolanguage that come to be correlated with them.
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