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Time on our hands: How gesture and the understanding of the past and future helped shape language

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 October 2008

Michael C. Corballis
Michael C. Corballis
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland 1142, New Zealand. m.corballis@auckland.ac.nzhttp://www.psych.auckland.ac.nz/people/Corballis/Corballis.htm
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Abstract

Recognising that signed languages are true languages adds to the variety of forms that languages can take. Such recognition also allows one to differentiate those aspects of language that depend on the medium (voiced or signed) from those that depend on more cognitive aspects. At least some aspects of language, such as symbolic representation, time markers, and generativity, may derive from the communication of the products of mental time travel, and from the sharing of remembered past and planned future episodes.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 31 , Issue 5 , October 2008 , pp. 517
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

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