Becoming human: rom

What is it about?

What do the pointing gesture, the imitation of new complex motor patterns, the evocation of absent objects and the grasping of others false beliefs all have in common? Apart from being (one way or other) involved in the language, they all would share a demanding requirement a second mental centre within the subject. This redefinition of the simulationism is extended in the present book in two directions. Firstly, mirror-neurons and, likewise, animal abilities connected with the visual field of their fellows, although they certainly constitute important landmarks, would not require this second mental centre. Secondly, others beliefs would have given rise not only to predicative communicative function but also to pre-grammatical syntax. The inquiry about the evolutionary-historic origin of language focuses on the cognitive requirements on it as a faculty (but not to the indirect causes such as environmental changes or greater co-operation), pays attention to children, and covers other human peculiarities as well, e.g., symbolic play, protodeclaratives, self-conscious emotions, and interactional or four-hand tasks." Introduction 1 – 10 Section one. Evolutionary precursors 11 – 12 Chapter 1. Monkeys’ mirror neurons 13 – 36 Chapter 2. Chimpanzees and the visual field of the conspecific 37 – 46 Section two. The basic human ability 47 – 48 Chapter 3. The three modes of processing the eyes of others 49 – 60 Chapter 4. Pointing gestures 61 – 78 Chapter 5. Four-hand co-operative actions and children’s interpersonal co-ordination games 79 – 88 Section three. Specifying some necessary requisites of language 89 – 90 Chapter 6. Saussurean parity and the perception of a radically not-own self 91 – 104 Chapter 7. About evocation 105 – 112 Chapter 8. Symbolic play: Developments in the simulatory centre 113 – 136 Chapter 9. From symbolic play to linguistic symbol 137 – 158 Section four. The origin of predication and syntax 159 – 160 Chapter 10. From the general exposition to the crucial requisite achieved by the protodeclarative 161 – 176 Chapter 11. Toward the original perception of false beliefs of others: The importance of the learned sign 177 – 188 Chapter 12. Between motor learning and the perception of beliefs of others: The crucial role of the protodeclarative 189 – 202 Section five. Pregrammatical, theme-rheme syntax: Revisiting Frege and Vygotsky 203 – 204 Chapter 13. From beliefs of others to communicative predication 205 – 218 Chapter 14. Revisiting Frege: How can a predication be at one and the same time true and not redundant? 219 – 228 Chapter 15. Communicative functions, Vygotskian ‘pure predicate’ and conceptual semantics: Various questions about predication 229 – 238 Chapter 16. Connecting with the concepts of theme (or topic) and rheme (or comment) 239 – 254 Section six. From original to present-day predication: Links and grammatical syntax 255 – 256 Chapter 17. Meaning and the different types of link 257 – 270 Chapter 18. Expressive speech and syntactic links: A hypothesis on the historic origins of those links, and on some other questions, along the way 271 – 302 Chapter 19. Historical grammaticalisation: The answers are lacking, but the questions are good 303 – 314 Section seven. Syntax beyond predication 315 – 316 Chapter 20. Interrogative communication 317 – 336 Chapter 21. Toward complex syntax: The crucial role of reported speech 337 – 358 Preliminary conclusion and the main thesis recapitulated 359 – 362 References 363 – 390 Glossary 391 – 394 Author index 395 – 400 Subject index 401 – 402

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Why is it important?

Some human peculiarities can derive from one evolutionary change. Quotes “Teresa Bejarano [...] is thoroughly familiar with the literature on language, developmental psychology, and primate behavior. She argues that the special qualities of the human mind depend on the emergence of what she calls a second center that confers the ability to simulate the minds of others [...]. I think second center, at least in Bejarano's treatment, offers more theoretical mileage than do these other concepts—working memory, imitation, recursion [...]. I can thoroughly recommend this stimulating book.” — Michael C. Corballis, University of Auckland, in PsycCRITIQUES, March 7, 2012. Vol. 57, Release 10, Article 3