Tercer salto funcional en la evolución del lenguaje: recursión
Resumen
Third functional step in the evolution of language: recursion
This article reflects on what recursion is, how it evolved, what frame of mind lies before this linguistic feature, which brain areas are involved, and whether it is a unique feature of human language. Recursion is conceived as the third and last functional step in the evolution of language, within the framework of TELES3 (Theory of Language Evolution by Three Emergencies and Natural Selection). This theory is based in the idea that a lexical symbolic protolanguage emerged first, and later only in our species emerged modern speech. The type of recursion taken into account is the central-embedding, which recently arose as a critical point emergence that caused an epigenetic change in the previous language system, which profoundly increased its verbal working memory. Recursion is not a separate system from the rest of the artifacts that make up the distributed functional neural linguistic system. Finally, this paper analyzes the implications for TELES3 about the possibility of the absence of recursion in pirahã and others languages.
key words. Recursion, functional step, central-embedding, critical point emergency, epigenetic change, verbal working memory, pirahã, TELES3.
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