Abstract
Over the last decade, language evolution research has been the driving force behind a renewed interest in non-arbitrary mappings (Cuskley & Kirby, 2013), as well as
multimodal theories of language development (Vigliocco et al., 2014). These theories have
focused largely on lexical iconicity in language systems. Here, we begin to extend this line
of research by considering how non-arbitrariness plays a role in language development and
emergence beyond the lexicon, moving from lexical to pragmatic meaning across different
modalities. In other words, we focus on non-arbitrariness in situated language (Murgiano
et al., 2021; Özyürek, 2021). Specifically, we consider the role of indices of dominance in
scaffolding the development of questions. By surveying the state of the art in research on
prosody, gesture, and signing, we outline evidence for cross-linguistically attested, iconic
gestural scaffolding of questions across signed and spoken languages. This supports
development of indexical use of pitch in question prosody, which has analogies in nonarbitrary dominance signalling. We conclude by synthesizing this evidence, presenting a
novel non-arbitrary bootstrapping theory for the emergence of questions.
multimodal theories of language development (Vigliocco et al., 2014). These theories have
focused largely on lexical iconicity in language systems. Here, we begin to extend this line
of research by considering how non-arbitrariness plays a role in language development and
emergence beyond the lexicon, moving from lexical to pragmatic meaning across different
modalities. In other words, we focus on non-arbitrariness in situated language (Murgiano
et al., 2021; Özyürek, 2021). Specifically, we consider the role of indices of dominance in
scaffolding the development of questions. By surveying the state of the art in research on
prosody, gesture, and signing, we outline evidence for cross-linguistically attested, iconic
gestural scaffolding of questions across signed and spoken languages. This supports
development of indexical use of pitch in question prosody, which has analogies in nonarbitrary dominance signalling. We conclude by synthesizing this evidence, presenting a
novel non-arbitrary bootstrapping theory for the emergence of questions.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | The Evolution of Language |
| Subtitle of host publication | Proceedings of the Joint Conference on Language Evolution (JCoLE) |
| Editors | JCoLE Scientific Committee |
| Pages | 134-142 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 5 Sept 2022 |