Editorial
Diacronia 10, November 7, 2019, art. A141 (p. 1–7)https://doi.org/10.17684/i10A141en

At the far end of diachrony: the evolutive spiral of the emergence of language. A theory

Adina Chirilă

Affiliations

Faculty of Letters, History and Theology, West University, Bd. Vasile Pârvan 4, 300223 Timișoara, Romania

History

Received October 24, 2019
Published November 7, 2019

Key words

neurolinguistics
mirror neurons
mirror system hypothesis
origin of languages

Abstract

Among the analytical efforts that pursue the question of the emergence of language, and possibly the formation of the cerebral mechanism that made it possible, the hypothesis of the mirror system developed by Michael A. Arbib is a well-articulated one, due to an interdisciplinary approach. The present article highlights several crucial elements in the process of its elaboration and exposes its essence: 1. there is no innate universal grammar; 2. language-readiness is a multimodal state – it evolved as a multimodal system: manual/facial/vocal, by stages: a) first, the protosign (manual protolanguage, with an open repertoire of signs); b) then, the protospeech (vocal protolanguage), that provided “the critical neuronal mass” due to which c) language evolved from protolanguage, as a result of cultural innovations; 3. the brain mechanisms that sustain language evolved atop a primitive pre-hominid mechanism that initially had nothing to do with communication; this, i.e. the mirror system for grasping, provided the evolutive base for language parity.

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    Text:Chirilă, A. (2019). At the far end of diachrony: the evolutive spiral of the emergence of language. A theory, Diacronia 10 (November 7), A141 (1–7), https://doi.org/10.17684/i10A141en
    BibTeX:@ARTICLE{chirila2019,
     author = {Adina Chirilă},
     title = {At the far end of diachrony: the evolutive spiral of the emergence of language. A theory},
     journal = {Diacronia},
     ISSN = {2393-1140},
     year = {2019},
     month = {November},
     number = {10},
     eid = {A141},
     doi = {https://doi.org/10.17684/i10A141en},
     pages = "(1–7)",
     url = {https://www.diacronia.ro/journal/issue/10/A141/en}
    }

Copyright

© 2019 The Authors. Publishing rights belong to the Journal. The article is freely accessible under the terms and conditions of the CC-BY Open Access licence.

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