Introduction: From hand to mouth?

In Chapter 12, we discussed models of “lexical” protolanguage, involving utterances composed of single words, or multiple words combined without syntax. We saw that, despite a number of explanatory strengths regarding the “end game” of language evolution, such models take too much for granted in the earlier stages of human evolution, in particular the voluntary control of vocal expression. A further weakness of lexical models is their assumption that the posited protolanguage has essentially disappeared in modern human society, and protolinguistic “fossils” make their appearance only under extraordinary social circumstances (e.g. slavery leading to pidgins) or brief developmental periods during childhood. The other two major models of protolanguage posit more significant preservation of protolanguage in contemporary human cultures. In the first, “gestural protolanguage” is argued to be present not only during development, but also in the gestures that humans ordinarily produce while speaking, in pantomime, and in the signed languages of deaf communities. In the second, discussed in Chapter 14, music is seen as an ongoing exemplar of an earlier protolanguage. Both models of protolanguage have the virtue of explaining pervasive non-linguistic aspects of human behavior in addition to their posited role in language evolution.