0136 Okay, maybe, as I approach chapter ten, titled “Fire”, I should expect that sensible construction should fail.

After all, the domestication of fire marks the transition between two periods in Comments on Michael Tomasello’s Arc of Inquiry (1999-2019).

But more on that later.

0137 Here are take-home messages for chapter three (3) and chapter nine (9).

0138 From chapter three, I learn that there are lexical and grammatical words, and that these words engage in displacement in very different manners.  Lexical words associate to real elements in content and situation-level actualities.  Grammatical words associate to the contiguities between these real elements.

0139 Is there another way to say that?

Oh, manual-brachial word gestures are icons and indexes of their referents.  Plus, they are distinct from one another and that allows symbolic operations.

0140 What about spoken words?

Well, they are distinct from one another.  Does that help?

0141 Okay, if spoken words are distinct from one another, and if an infant can hear the sounds of language and innately knows that words should be distinct, then the infant may calculate the transition probabilities that one syllable should be followed by another syllable.  Consistent transitional probabilities identify a spoken word.

Did I say that correctly?

The transitional probability that one particular syllable follows another syllable is word dependent.  Something very analogous to the literal jig-saw puzzle metaphor takes place.  The infant fits the syllables into words.  Then, the toddler figures out how to fit words into statements.  And, the kid off to language mastery in childhood.

0142 But, what about the meanings and messages of words?

Okay, the newbie uses visual cues to lock in a meaning and a message, once the syllabic presence of a spoken word is established.

To me, the meaning aspect is like fitting pieces of a jigsaw puzzle together on the basis of the image fragment that each piece contains.

0143 Plus, what about the big picture?

Well, here is where the much studied topic of “mind reading” comes in.  This is so crucial because, if we could cast ourselves back into the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, we would have to actually gaze upon the person who is talking. The whole body is animated by what?… a mind?… or a brain?… or someone engaging in hand-talk.

This aspect of the big picture is very important, because… well… it is integral to hand-talk, but it is not part of language (defined as the biological capacity to talk).  I suppose that talk is more than language.  So, language may not be the crucial question.  Talk is.

0144 This shift in the crucial question calls to mind chapter 2B of An Archaeology of the Fall (by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues), titled “Words are not lies.”

So what is the title of chapter 2A?

“Words are lies.”

0144 That brings me to the question, “If proto-linguistic hand-talk adapts to the social circle of the team, then why should it become fully linguistic?  Plus, why should hominins have added speech to their hand-talk?”

Mithen tips his hidden hand with the willful and truthful title of chapter ten.

“Fire”.