Cognitive Precursors to Language

Abstract

This chapter reviews the origins of language by appealing to a “quartet of characteristics” deemed crucial to the hominin line’s special linguistic evolution: Bipedalism, manual dexterity, neoteny, and social bonding. It proposes that a platform for language evolution was created by the quartet, outlines steps which may have occurred, and analyzes how the ongoing quartet of human characteristics shaped the aspects of human cognition. The chapter suggests that human language evolved gradually within a unique context which included bipedalism, manual dexterity, neoteny, and social bonding. It shows that the features of cortical control, lexical mapping, recursion, and perspective marking constitute the cognitive underpinnings for human language.

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