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Complex First? On the Evolutionary and Developmental Priority of Semantically Thick Words

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Markus Werning
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Abstract

The Complex-First Paradox consists in a set of collectively incompatible but individually well-confirmed propositions that regard the evolution, development, and cortical realization of the meanings of concrete nouns. Although these meanings are acquired earlier than those of other word classes, they are semantically more complex and their cortical realizations more widely distributed. For a neurally implemented syntax-semantics interface, it should thus take more effort to establish a link between a concept and its lexical expression. However, in ontogeny and phylogeny, capabilities demanding more effort, ceteris paribus, develop and evolve later than those demanding less effort. The paradox points to an explanatory deficit in linguistic theory.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 77 , Issue 5 , December 2010 , pp. 1096 - 1108
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

‡

Research in the context of this paper has been supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, grant FOR 600.

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