Cromagnon's Language

EXCERPT/EXTRAIT

The present research is extremely complex because it crosses several scientific fields that have never been crossed before for the simplest reason that archaeologists are not phylogenic linguists and phylogenic linguists are not archaeologists, and strangely enough an archaeological team will not integrate in its daily work a phylogenic linguist and in the same way a phylogenic linguistic team will not integrate an archaeologist. We can regret it but it is a fact. That’s why it is necessary to explain the general goal of this research that tries to cross these various fields.

THE INVENTION OF HUMAN LANGUAGE

The language of Homo Sapiens is unique in the world in the fact that it is articulated and it is built with three successive and hierarchically organized articulations. This is the result of what is called the phylogeny of language. The validation of this phylogeny is in the psychogenetic acquisition of language (first and foreign languages) by children, teenagers and adults. This is pure linguistics and the very first linguist who dedicated a lot of energy to the subject of what he called the “glossogeny” of language was Gustave Guillaume, particularly in his lectures in 1958-59 and in 1959-60 (the last lecture of January 28, 1960 was delivered five days before his death at the age of 77). He too saw three stages in that process of the emergence of human language. He centered that complex emergence on what he called “thought” [pensée] and he advocated the idea that thought was building language at the same time as it was being built by language. This idea of simultaneous and mutually generating thought and language is an idea I would favor though I would also shift it slightly towards a more mental process centered on the ability of the brain to discriminate patterns in the continuous flow of sensations received from all senses and physiological sensors in the body, then to identify and to conceptualize these patterns by using language to name them. The invention of referential words to name such patterns developed language and the ability of the brain to discriminate and conceptualize such patterns. Language develops along with conceptualization that develops along with language.

This phylogeny of language is based on the three levels of morphological growth of the word in languages. First the root, second the stem and third the frond.

The root only identifies and conceptualizes a semantic meaning which is not captured as spatial or temporal, as nominal or verbal. This root is not categorized, meaning it does not carry in itself such a category or part of discourse that would make it a nominal (spatial) element or a verbal (temporal) element. In the same way this root does not carry in itself any function, gender, number, extension on one hand or tense, mode, aspect, person, number on the other hand. All these elements are attached to the roots within the discursive production of linguistic utterances. These root languages are thus constructed on the basis of only the first articulation between consonants and vowels integrated in the langue of such languages. All the rest is discourse.

The stem is a categorized linguistic item and it carries nothing else but a nominal or verbal categorization added to the meaning of the root. The words produced at this level are invariable and all other elements like function, gender, number, extension on one hand or tense, mode, aspect, person, number on the other hand are added around these items by the discursive process itself producing utterances. These languages are thus built on the second articulation between spatial and temporal elements due to the conceptualization of space and time by the human mind and their integration in the langue of the concerned languages, a langue that is entirely built on these conceptualized categorical elements. All the rest then is discourse.

The frond is an item that carries nominal and verbal categories and may also carry function, gender, number, extension on one hand or tense, mode, aspect, person, number on the other hand. The words are thus ready to build utterances in the discursive process that will associates these fronds together. The langue of such languages has integrated such syntactic elements by conceptualizing the very communicational situation. All that it has not integrated in this communicational situation is discourse.

Note these three levels are present in the languages that are based on such fronds, that have reached the third articulation, that of fully or vastly integrated communicational syntax in the words themselves. English for instance with some words like “work” have kept or recreated some kind of root items since the word “work” itself is not clearly categorized and seems to be invariable in many uses. Yet it is categorized too and thus it is a stem since it can be used without any change as a noun or as a verb, and at the same time it is a frond because it can carry in some other uses special nominal or verbal marks. The following utterance does not say whether the word “work” is a noun or a verb.

“Work, work, always work!”

Actually it can be both. First a noun:

“Work, work, always work! No doubt work is an admirable thing!”

Second a verb:

“You must work, child, work, work, always work.”

It is common in Indo-European languages or Indo-Aryan languages (both third articulation languages or frond languages) to have words that are built on roots categorized in a way or another as nominal or verbal stems and then carrying various marks that make them be fronds. Think of the noun “food” versus the verb “feed” from the Proto Indo-European root *pa-. “Food” is a frond since it is neuter in gender, can carry a plural mark, can have articles attached to it, plus adjectives, plus attachments or agreement rules for person and number, etc. “Feed” is a verb since it can be conjugated (“feed,” “feeds,” “fed,” “feeding” and all other temporal or modal constructions) and it can carry agreement rules for person and number, etc.