Falk+reading

Notes on "Prelinguistic evolution in early hominins: Whence motherese?" by Dean Falk


 * Hominin- what we used to call a Hominid; a creature that paleoanthropologists have agreed is human or a human ancestor. These include all of the Homo species (//Homo sapiens, H. ergaster, H. rudolfensis//), all of the Australopithecines (//Australopithicus africanus, A. boisei//, etc.) and other ancient forms like //Paranthropus// and //Ardipithecus//.
 * Motherese- the simplified and repetitive type of speech, with exaggerated intonation and rhythm, often used by adults when speaking to babies.
 * Prosody- is the rhythm, stress, and intonation of speech. Prosody may reflect various features of the speaker or the utterance: the emotional state of the speaker; the form of the utterance (statement, question, or command); the presence of irony or sarcasm; emphasis, contrast, and focus; or other elements of language that may not be encoded by grammar or choice of vocabulary.
 * Protolanguage- an extinct and unrecorded language reconstructed by comparison of its recorded or living descendants
 * baby parking** (leaving infants more exposed in trees for considerable periods of time while mothers forage, frequently at a distance.) VS **baby setting** (put their babies down next to them and to have remained in close proximity while they foraged nearby)

Bickerton argues in his commentaries (Falk) that motherese does not contain the seeds for the distinctive features of language (contrastive phonology, syntax, lexicon, symbolic referential units, and rules for linking these together), and that language origins must therefore be sought elsewhere.