Transcript Wolfgang Wildgen The Evolution of Meaning and Discourse

Wolfgang Wildgen
Self-organization of
Meaning and Discourse
Late Spring School
Cognitive Semiotics
Sofia, NBU 28th of May
Introduction
 Language, the exchange of meaningful messages, the
systematic reference to a world beyond ourselves, the
reflection on our use of language is a dramatic step beyond
the behavior and the psychic states of other creatures and
beyond the material world. It was therefore a major challenge
for evolutionary thinking first during the controversies of the
18th century (Condillac, Rousseau, Diderot, Herder), later for
Darwin and his followers. The central problem concerns the
apparent perfection of human language and the difficulty to
explain preparatory stages and their adaptive value.
 I will start with a parallel problem due to perfection and the
lack of transition which concerns a much earlier step in
evolution: the evolution of the eye during the so-called
Cambrian revolution some 500 my ago (cf. Park, 2005).
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 Charles Darwin in the Origin of Species (1859) treated
the eye under the heading ORGANS OF EXTREME
PERFECTION AND COMPLICATION. He admits that the
idea that it has been created by natural selection is
“absurd to the highest degree”.
 The Cambrian revolution affected only six out of 38
phyla, but 95% of multicellular animals existing today
have eyes. Therefore, it is probably the most decisive
evolutionary step in the last billion years. Vision, i.e., the
faculty to form images of selected aspects of the
environment, triggered on arms-race which shaped
bodies, behaviors, enhanced the control and perception
of motion (a visually guided attack or escape) and
created the world of colors we experience. In a sense, it
created a world of meanings centered in the brains of
animals (a kind of virtual reality)
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Figure 1: The rough evolution of receptors for different sense organs in
geological time (graphics from Parker, 2005)
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I will argue in the next section that the origin of language
(roughly 2 my BP) produced a comparable catastrophic
jump which could become the basis of evolutionary
processes (losses and gains) in the future (the next
millions of years).
In the case of vision two subfields are coordinated and cannot
be reduced to one another:
1. The physics of light/refraction/absorption, etc.
2. The psychophysics of perception and the neurodynamics
of image formation, storage and imagination.
I will argue that with the emergence of language a third, non
reducible domain is added, cultural significance and
meaning. Therefore, any theory of language has to
consider at least three levels and the context of their
emergence.
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1. The physics of light: emergence shortly after the Big
Bang with the appearance of stars (other physical fields
relevant for perception follow later, thus sound fields for
hearing or chemical fields for smell and taste).
Cf. Guth’s “inflationary universe”. The inflationary stage is followed
by a dark age and later the creation of stars which emit light.
2. The (neuro)psychology of image-formation: emergence
3.
in the Cambrian revolution; 500 my BP (later auditory
gestalts rival with visual ones for dominance)
The cultural significance of sign-behavior and meaningful
social communication: emergence 2 my BP (probably
both in the auditory and the visual mode; the auditory
becomes dominant in humans).
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The emergence of symbolic meaning
 The emergence of signaling systems can be explained via
game theory (cf. Skyrms, 1996), i.e. signaling systems are
evolutionary stable against non-signaling systems and if one
signaling systems (including specific conventions for the
correlation of signifier and signified) dominates slightly (which
is normally the case if noise is present) it will suppress an
alternative one.
 Now, if signaling is associated with costs (negative payoffs) as
in alarm calls of velvet monkeys, free riders who understand
the signal but don’t send them, win and may suppress those
who give alarm calls. It is, however , sufficient to introduce a
small amount of correlation (e.g. by kinship) to eliminate free
riders. One may say that altruistic behavior in signaling
emerges.
 The existence of a signaling system can become a method for
social correlation and thus enforce the stability of a specific
system against other ones existing in non-correlated
populations).
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Sign-functions and their evolutionary
significance
Poetic function, phatic function, metalingusitic function) (Jakobson)
representation
Human language
Bühler
Semiotic sign
Animal communication
Non-semiotic sign
expression
appeal
For Bühler, functions (aims, intentions) are kinds of vital needs and thus presuppose the
level of life (of animals). If such needs (or instincts in traditional terminology) are generalized beyond animals and humans, a higher level of generalization can be reached.
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The evolutionary interpretation of the triad of
functions
 The last two functions, expression and appeal are
strongly linked, because the use and meaning of
expressive acts asks implicitly for some receiver and
appeal is without effect if no expressive content is
transferred. We can use the label “social communication” (social calls, grooming, body postures, etc.) as
a cover-term for both and distinguish it from functional
referentiality (which first appears in the alarm-calls of
e.g. velvet-monkeys). This simplifies Bühler’s triangle
to a binary opposition between social communication
(expression/appeal) and reference to the world
common to all participants.
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The transition to humans
If representation is in its first stages already present in
socially organized primates (or even in monkeys), the
transition to humans concerns mainly:
 The enrichment of representation, i.e., the lexicon and
via self-organization the syntax; and
 The emergence of meta-functions.
 The most prominent case of meta-function concerns
propositional attitudes and explicit performatives:
 I believe that a snail is in the tree.
 I tell you that a snail is in the tree.
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If in a further step one assumes that representation
emerges from ecological cognition (categorization of
an ecology) and expression/appeal from some
structure of the group (primitive, non-conscious social
categorization of behavior), one obtains three inclusive
levels,
 where the inner circle is reached by all animals with a
social organization and specific reactions (perception
/motor control) to their environment,
 the middle circle concerns animal communication with
a minimal reference to the context and
 the outer circle encompasses humans (and possibly
some primates with self-awareness). The functions in
Bühler’s triad emerge from ecological categories and
from social categories already apparent in animal
behavior.
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Biosemiotic hierarchy of functions
Meta-representation
Representation
Ecological
categories
Social cognition
Expression/appeal
Meta-communication
The inner circle is
reached by all animals
with a social
organization and
specific reactions to
their environment,
the middle circle
concerns animal
communication with a
minimal reference to
the context and
the outer circle
encompasses humans
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Self-organization and functionalism
In relation to overall selective pressure this means that:
 Adequate cognitive (perceptual, motor and memory) skills must
be available. This increase is related to a bigger and more
energy consuming brain, which in turn must be “paid” by the
availability of high-energy food.
 The power of the linguistic system can be decomposed in many
different ways and distributed over the principal components:
phonology, lexicon, syntax, discourse, i.e., many equally
powerful forms of organization are possible. This is the basis for
(de Saussure’s) arbitrariness in the lexicon and in many areas
of morphology, syntax, and discourse.
As a consequence, it becomes impossible to judge the functional
power of a language in relation only to sub-components.
Moreover, the context of usage becomes an important factor.
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The catastrophic transition to
language
Non-language
Language
Communicative capacities
2 my BP to 40.000 y BP
Evolutionary time scale since the Cambrian revolution
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From image to concept (referential meaning)
 The Cambrian revolution created an image making “machine”
which became the motor of evolutionary diversity and which
controlled body shapes, color displays, camouflage, mimicry,
pursuit and escape behaviors, social identification, and social
cooperation. In a sense, the image-machine became the
functional heart of higher organized animals and it is still at the
heart of human behavior and culture.
 The Paleolithic revolution created the concept making
“machine”. The question is how could concepts which
categorize and socialize ambient meanings already relevant for
the behavior of animals emerge and expand to such complex
systems as human languages.
 This question asks for the proper transition between objective
(external) features and subjective, but socially shared features
related to the relevant environment. Thom’s theory of
pregnance tries to fill this gap.
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Objective pregnancies (saliencies) versus
subjective pregnancies
 Thom compares subjective pregnancies found in animals
(and man) with objective pregnancies (forces) in nature.
Linguistic meaning (concepts) which are necessary to form
propositions by predication are at a point of convergence
between biological pregnancies, natural forces, motion
patterns and geometric forms
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Thom‘s agenda of „diffusion of pregnancies“
subjective
objective
free isotropic
propagation
diffusion
controlled
propagation
constrained
propagation
temperature
sound
chemical diffusion
odor, taste,
touch
physical fields
e.g. light
state transitions
motion of solid
bodies
phonetic
gestalts
no
propagation
biological
pregnances
geometrical forms
color
Cambrian
revolution
Palaeolithic
revolution
valencepatterns
concepts:
words and
syntax
written
words
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Thom’s conjecture
 René Thom conjectured that the lexico-syntactic valences
described by Tesnière (1959) or the case-frames enumerated
by Fillmore (1968) are basically a reflection of restrictions
imposed on natural processes. This hypothesis underlies
catastrophe theoretic semantics (cf. Wildgen, 1982). In semiotic
terms, the relational architecture underlying language has a
foundation in natural laws, or more provocatively, the
archetypical architecture of linguistic utterances (sentences) is
rooted in natural laws, it is an icon of the real world in which
human beings live.
 As a corollary this explains why humans endowed with
language are able to discover natural laws, use them for
technology and control the ambient world which for all other
beings, including non-human hominids, is opaque and just an
all-mighty force which beings must endure passively.
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An illustrative fragment of
catastrophe theoretic semantics
 The valence pattern is globally described as a conflict of
“pregnancies” in Thom (1978c: 76). If these conflicts are
stripped off their specific intentional and real-life content, a
formal topologico-dynamic pattern is left, which can be
matched against the hierarchy of elementary catastrophes in
Thom (1972).
 These archetypes are theoretical entities, which allow the
formulation of a family of interesting hypotheses. Like the
theoretical terms used in physics, they formulate a program
of empirical research, such that some of the hypotheses
formulated in these terms may be elaborated or falsified.
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If we assume a linear space with two poles we can describe the change in
quality (or in space) in the way shown in the Figure. The curved surface
above describes the states of stability and instability (the attractors and the
repellors of the system). The process makes a catastrophic jump from one
partial surface to another (e.g. from 'dirty' to 'clean').
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The archetypes of simple and mutual giving
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The differentiation of the referential function
1. Increase of social vocabulary referring to actions in the
group and in relation to preys and predators (cf. the
alarm calls as base line).
2. The increase in linguistically labeled distinctions in the
ambient world; i.e., the differentiation of the lexicon of
flora and fauna.
3. The complexity of utterance organization, i.e., the
emergence of syntax.
As in child development, the increase of the lexicon (1 and 2)
asks for a proper phonological organization. Therefore,
phonology (enabled be an efficient cognition/memory
/motor planning of phonetic sequences) is a selforganized outcome of an increased lexicon. In a similar
way syntax is a self-organized consequence of larger
utterances, which are less context-dependent.
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Evolutionary explanation of Thom’s
conjecture
 Thom’s assumption is on one side tempting, because it could
provide a much deeper foundation of linguistics than any
current theory, but on the other side it cannot explain how
human language could become a mirror of natural processes.
In Wildgen (2004) I proposed a transition mediated by tool
making and early technologies. In fact, language has not
emerged in isolation, it rather came together with other
“symbolic forms” (a term coined by Cassirer) like myth (ritual),
art and technology. Lithic technologies used since more than
2 my could stand for a first stage (possibly in the context of
rituals, an early proto-language and body-painting).
 Insofar as such technologies asked for a precise control of
natural forces, human symbolic behavior was at the start
parallel to a kind of “scientific” insight and corresponding
conceptual elaborations.
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The evolution of discourse
At the macro-level human housing and house-building is a
domain where structures emerge, which can be reorganized in
the shape of space-oriented communication, linguistic
orientation in space and memory of narrative contents related
to space.
The background of these processes is given by the
ecological/situational context. Some objects or context features
become culturally significant. These are mainly:
 places (of living, of chase, etc.),
 tools and the techniques of their use,
 motion patterns, gestures, gestured signs, dance,
The relevance of places (in space and time), of spatial orientation
and categorization are of primordial importance for the
semantics of natural languages as the tradition of localistic
theories shows.
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 Already in the last common ancestor of humans and
chimpanzees (LCA), contextual space acts as an
external memory of affordances, which is indexically
given by paths (of social locomotion and predator/preylocomotion), harvesting locations (and times), dangerous
locations, places for sleep, courtship, housing, frontiers
of territories, etc. These indexically loaded areas and
places function like a catalyst of social action, insofar as
they can coordinate social perception and action.
 As soon as space is more specifically organized in
relation to cognition and social use, it unfolds in a cycle
of social “investment”. Architecture and the spatial
organization of a village (or later a town) are clear
examples. This level is autocatalytic insofar as the
spatial organization becomes itself a cyclic structure in
which different functions cooperate.
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Semiotically invested subspaces
housing
fire place
myth. space
public space
ritual
tool making
outside
chase, harvest
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From social pragmatics to
discourse
 Tool manufacturing, body art and rituals may be either
preadaptations enabling the emergence of language or already
be parallel and fostered by a protolanguage. Due to the nonpermanent nature of spoken language, we have no chance to
check which of the alternatives is valid. The fact that language
usage is primarily a social communicative phenomenon
encourages the search for a cultural/social origin of language
and discourse. In this perspective it is not predication or
propositional structure, but discursive processing in social
contexts which must be foregrounded.
 Therefore, one must ask, if discourse functions like narrative,
descriptive, argumentative or ritual discourse had a survival
value in early human populations (before hominisation), which
differs sharply from the survival patterns in chimpanzees and
other primates which did not evolve a linguistic capacity.
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A possible hierarchy of discourse
functions
 Classical speech-act theories placed the proposition (and its
elocution) at the center and added illocution and perlocution.
The perlocution (the impact on the audience) and its social
effects are neglected. The relation of language use to its
contextual evaluation and thus to its selective relevance is
excluded. An evolutionary account must start from
perlocutionary effects, like: A persuades / convinces B (via an
utterance), A evokes positive feelings / gets help /in/by B (via an
utterance); A contributes verbally to the solution of a problem /
teaches / helps to find a solution (via an utterance).
 If the perlocutionary effect is increasing the fitness of the group,
such a feature (and the underlying faculty) can be selected. As
no other human species with lesser communicative faculties
exists, it is impossible to test the selective advantage our
species got and why. The only approach which is feasible
concerns the analysis of actual discursive effects.
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1. If the scout can describe the place and number
of a herd of bison accurately, the group will
follow him and bring food to the clan, which will
not starve and thus survive.
2. If the experienced warrior can give a good story
for his undertakings others will join a new
enterprise and learn from his experience how to
overcome the enemy.
3. If the perpetrator can defend his cause
effectively he will not be expelled or killed.
These examples show three different discourse
functions: descriptive, narrative and
argumentative.
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Discourse as basic achievement
My hypothesis is that rhetoric (and possibly poetic) functions
stood at the beginning when discourse emerged. I will only
discuss he narrative function in the folowing.
The central concern in the narrative is:
 How can a sequence of events/actions be
segmented/compressed into sentences?
 How are these arranged such that not only the temporal
sequence can be derived but also spatial itineraries and
causal effects can be imagined or reproduced? The
problem concerns a mapping of time, space and
cause/force in a text such that an easy and reliable
understanding by the audience is made possible.
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Evaluative and relevance functions
This is, however, not sufficient. In each narrative text,
evaluative and relevance assigning processes have to
be controlled. As Labov (1972) has shown, the
Abstract/Title must sketch the relevance of the story
which will be told, the Climax separates the Complication
and the Result and spans an arch of interest for the
audience. In many cases, self-evaluative information is
distributed over the story, etc. Thus even simple stories
contain two components:
 Time/space/force mappings
 A socio-evaluative profile or a relevance component in
which social values are exchanged (respecting the
audience and self-advertisement)
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 These factors point into the direction of a twofold functionality of
(narrative) discourse. It has a referential function (mapping a
sequence of events/actions) and a socio-evaluative function. In
the emergence of (narrative) discourse, two different selective
processes must have cooperated. If in small talk the socioevaluative component dominates, this does not mean (as
Dunbar suggests) that discourse emerged from social contact
(grooming).
 The two factors have probably different evolutionary histories.
The referential function elaborates cognitive functions already
developed since the Cambrian revolution (helped by bigger
brain, which was made possible by high energy food and
allowed for the construction of sophisticated tools). A further
function is based on the evolution of social groups and their
organization and more specifically of cooperative/competitive
processes in dense social networks.
 The key to the solution, the social organization of human
populations 300.000 y ago and that of neighboring human
species in competition with them is not accessible empirically.
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Consequences for an evolutionary
grammar
 A grammar is called evolutionary, if its architecture
reflects the order in which important linguistic features
emerged and respects the natural (causal) relations
between components which were selected at different
stages (e.g., 2 my, 500.000 y, 100.000 y, 50.000 y,
5.000 y BP).
 In conclusion of the facts and hypotheses exposed in
this lecture, a grammar should first consider the
cognitive basics, i.e., the mapping of space, time, force
(cause) into a language.
 Secondly, it should pay attention to discourse
organization in relation to social functions of language.
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Self-organization and the arbitrariness of
languages
 The basic factors which shaped human language led to
numberless but functionally equivalent individual
languages/dialects/jargons/repertoires, etc. This feature was
called the arbitrariness of the linguistic sign by Ferdinand de
Saussure.
 In reality it is only the effect of multiple processes of selforganization which fulfill the basic cognitive and social
functions. As the set of concepts grows, and at the same pace
the length of utterances, the fine-grained structure of languages
is only grossly constrained by the basic functions. Internal
measures of economy and optimality select one or several
solutions and by a law of conservation the system stops the
search for other solutions.
 The differences between languages are the out-come of a
process weakly constrained by the basic functions and selected
by mechanisms of self-organization, which allow for many 35
equivalent solutions.
Some bibliographical hints
Labov, William, 1972. The Transformation of Experience in Narrative
Syntax, chapter 9 of: Labov, W., Language in the Inner City. Studies
in the Black English Vernacular. Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 354-396.
Parker, Andrew, 2005. Seven Deadly Colours. The Genius of Nature’s
Palette and How it Eluded Darwin, Free Press, London.
Thom, René, 1990. Semiophysics : a sketch, Addison-Wesley,
Redwood City, Calif
Wildgen, Wolfgang, 1982. Catastrophe Theoretic Semantics. An
Elaboration and Application of René Thom’s Theory, Benjamins,
Amsterdam/Philadelphia.
Wildgen, Wolfgang, 1994. Process, Image, and Meaning. A Realistic
Model of the Meanings of Sentences and Narrative Texts,
Benjamins, Amsterdam/Philadelphia.
Wildgen, Wolfgang, 2004a. The Evolution of Human Languages.
Scenarios, Principles, and Cultural Dynamics, Benjamins,
Amsterdam/Philadelphia.
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