The CC-Theory of the Origin of Language

Abstract

In this paper I propose a research programme based on a theory called the CC-theory, consisting of three very tentative and speculative hypotheses that together account for the origin of the major aspects of natural language. The core hypothesis (which I will call the Conceptual Copy Hypothesis or CC-Hypothesis) states that a very small change in the genes of our ancestors had the effect that a second copy of the conceptual-intentional (C-I) component develops: this small change at the genotype level is argued to have dramatic consequences at the phenotype level: this new copy of the C-I component starts to function as the grammatical component and many properties of the grammatical component are derived from assuming this origin. The second hypothesis states that this new component makes a link with the already existing system to generate and interpret mouth-produced sounds, gestures and facial expressions in use in primates and our direct ancestor for emotive calls and social interaction. It thus accounts for the fact that the primary media for language are speech and gesturing, and, together with independent facts and assumptions, for the fact that natural language uses symbolic reference rather than indexical or iconic reference. The third hypothesis states that integrating two elements into a structure (structure building) is an operation in an independent module, unique to humans but not to language. Recursion can arise from this structure building under specific conditions. It thus accounts for the fact that structure building (and in many cases also recursion) can, as I will argue, be used for objects from many faculties and modules, both linguistic ones (orthography, phonology, morphology, syntax, and discourse grammar) and non-linguistic ones (counting (mathematics), music, dance, thinking, vision, artificial languages in logic, mathematics and programming). The CC-theory is tentative and highly speculative. However, even if the theory I propose here would turn out to be completely wrong, I believe it is interesting to study since the theory, in my view, has all the right properties of a theory of the origin of language, so the correct theory of the origin of language should have the same or similar properties.