Pantomime within and beyond the evolution of language

Abstract

Abstract The core of the paper is a critique of the role of pantomime in the author’s theory (the Mirror System Hypothesis, MSH, itself evolving) of the biocultural evolution that led to human brains that were “language ready” long before humans developed languages. We argue that the notion of “ad hoc” pantomime posited there should be modified to a notion of “ur-pantomime” in which pantomimes are somewhat ritualized by individual users but not yet conventionalized by the group. We extend this to offer a taxonomy of pantomime, with the above forms distinguished from both pantomime exhibited by apes and theatrical pantomime. Complex action recognition and imitation play a crucial role in MSH, as well as conventionalization of pantomime to “protosigns” as possible stepping stones to protolanguage. Pantomimes can also emphasize flexible trajectories to indicate the ways in which an action might vary depending on the current affordances of objects. Both features are shown to be helpful in pedagogy, but are not restricted to this domain. Trajectory variation may be the underpinning of present-day cospeech gestures. We then turn to a hypothesis on the cultural evolution whereby protolanguages became languages through the emergence of a broader lexicon and a grammar comprised of diverse constructions supporting a compositional syntax. Noting that MSH has focused on the emerging structure of single utterances, we assess how MSH may be modified to incorporate an account of the emergence of narrative. Finally, we assess to what extent mindreading, navigation in space, and navigation in time are to be added to the capabilities of the language-ready brain, while insisting that their form in modern humans results from an expanding spiral linked with capacities for language and narrative through cultural evolution.

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