CONTENTS
Acknowledgments = ⅹ
Introduction: language from the body = 1
1 The universe of gesture = 5
1.1 Signed and spoken languages = 5
1.2 Speech as gesture = 8
1.3 Signing as gesture = 11
1.4 Semantic phonology = 12
1.5 Language as gesture = 16
1.6 An evolutionary perspective on language = 17
1.7 Grasping syntax = 21
2 The nature of gesture = 27
2.1 Comparing sign and speech = 28
2.2 What is gesture? = 38
2.3 Speech as gesture = 42
2.4 The two faces of gesture = 46
2.5 Perceptual categorization = 48
2.6 The role of motor actions in perception = 50
2.7 Global mappings, preconcepts, and presyntax = 53
2.8 Event cognition and language = 54
2.9 Visible gestures: seeing language = 57
3 Are signed and spoken languages differently organized? = 64
3.1 Language from a different part of the body = 64
3.2 Describing signed language = 69
3.3 Seeking organizational similarity at the sublexical level = 71
3.4 Looking at differences = 80
3.5 Summary = 88
4 Is language modular? = 92
4.1 Modular versus associationist theories of language = 92
4.2 Modularity and cerebral localization = 94
4.3 Plasticity and associationism = 95
4.4 Linguistic modality and modularity = 97
4.5 "Spatial" syntax and the left brain = 100
4.6 Simultaneity and sequentiality: modules and isomorphs = 102
4.7 Coarticulation in speech and sign = 106
4.8 Modularism versus associationism = 115
5 Do we have a genetically programmed drive to acquire language? = 121
5.1 Universal grammar = 122
5.2 Are there genetically determined milestones in language development? = 123
5.3 What must be mastered? Structure and plasticity = 126
5.4 The critical period for acquisition and species specificity = 127
5.5 A grammar gene? = 132
5.6 Past tense and semimodularity = 133
5.7 Distributed neuronal circuits and neural Darwinism = 139
5.8 The nature of a gestural acquisition theory = 140
6 Language from the body politic = 143
6.1 Language from a special part of the universe = 143
6.2 Movement, brain, society, language = 149
7 The origin of syntax: gesture as name and relation = 161
7.1 The system of language = 161
7.2 The second subsystem = 166
7.3 Language from the whole brain = 167
7.4 Sign languages and manual gestures = 174
7.5 Gestural syntax = 176
7.6 The tree in the seed = 178
7.7 The opening of the seed = 182
7.8 Language coevolving with culture = 186
7.9 Elaborating the pattern = 187
7.10 Gesture and iconicity = 191
7.11 Signaling syntax = 194
8 Language from the body: an evolutionary perspective = 198
8.1 The hominid adaptive complex = 199
8.2 Darwinian theory: gradualism, incrementalism, and punctuation = 203
8.3 Evolution of cerebral asymmetry = 209
8.4 The hominid life style = 214
8.5 The ancestral stock = 215
8.6 Hominid social behavior = 217
8.7 Origin and evolution of language = 223
8.8 Language and longevity as evolutionary problems = 230
8.9 Language from the body: final metaphors = 231
References = 237
Author index = 255
Subject index = 259
