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The ROLES of
EXPRESSION and REPRESENTATION
in LANGUAGE EVOLUTION
James R Hurford,
Language Evolution and Computation Research Unit,
Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, University of Edinburgh.
``We should search for the ancestry of language not in prior systems of animal commu­
nication but in prior representational systems.'' (Bickerton, 1990:23)
`` . . . it is not plausible that our internal representation of statements, which we use
in order to reason and draw inferences in other modes, will map in a simple element­
by­element fashion into the words with which we express those statements in speech.
. . . Nobody really has the least idea what is physically going on in the head when we
reason, but I agree that whatever goes on is likely to relate in a fairly abstract way to
the words of spoken utterances, which are adapted to the necessary linearity of speech
and to the fact that speaker and hearer are working with separate models of reality.''
Sampson, 1997:100)

1 Introduction The goal of linguistics is to explain the structure of language. It can be agreed that nothing of the distinctively complex structure of modern languages can be attributed to ancestry in animal communication systems. But how much of the complex structure of modern languages can be attributed to ancestry in pre­linguistic representational systems? In this paper, I argue for the two following related propositions: ffl Much of the structure of language has no role in a system for the internal representation of thought. ffl Much of the structure of language has a role in systems for the expression of thought, which includes communication. A corollary of these propositions, not pursued in detail here, is: ffl Pressure for effective expression of thought, including communication, may explain much of the structure of language. In the following sections, to start this argument, independent characterizations of non­linguistic mental representations and the structure of language are ...

@incollection{hurford02theRoles,
  author={J. Hurford},
  title={The Roles of Expression and Representation in Language Evolution},
  year={2002},
  address={Oxford},
  chapter={15},
  editor={Alison Wray},
  publisher={Oxford University Press},
  booktitle={The Transition to Language},
  note={HTML version is a more reliable source (more recent) than a postscript version.},
  url={http://groups.lis.illinois.edu/amag/langev/paper/hurford02theRoles.html}
}

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