the fact that signing gives humans the ability to communicate concerning things and events that are _displaced_ in time or place from the immediate sensory field of the human communicators . Humans can communicate concerning the past or future ; even highly trained chimps cannot . Nor can chimps use negation ; can’t communicate concerning what something is not.

essay-theses linked below .

There I focus on symbolic signing as the defining characteristic of language , differentiating it from all other animal communication . As I understand it you also focus on the symbolic aspect of language : “ Tomasello argues that the essence of language is its symbolic dimension, which rests on the uniquely human ability to comprehend intention. ... All theories of language acquisition assume these fundamental skills of intention-reading and pattern-finding.”

I am not focused on language acquisition , but the fact that signing gives humans the ability to communicate concerning things and events that are _displaced_ in time or place from the immediate sensory field of the human communicators . Humans can communicate concerning the past or future ; even highly trained chimps cannot attain these capacities . 99.99...% of the chimp species who live in the wild for millions of years have not chimps have not invrnted any of the meager symbolic communication skills that they attain in human capitivity training . Nor can chimps use negation ; can’t communicate concerning what something is not.Nor can they ask questions .

This displacement allows dead generations of humans to pass on to future generations a vast amount of knowledge about their experience through words . Why ? Because words are symbolic signs : they are using something to represent something that they are not ; there is an arbitrary relation between the sign and the thing signified ( as opposed to indexical signs , like smoke as a _natural_ or _necessary_ sign of fire ). Since a word is not what it signifies, words describing experiences of a dead generation can be passed on to future generations even though those who had the experience, those signified , are dead . They are displaced to the past relative to the living generation, out of the immediate sensory field of the living generation, but the living generations can receive communications from dead generations concerning aspects of the world and life , still important to the new generation’s lives ; because of the displacement capacity of symbolic communication, language .

So knowledge about the situation world and life can be accumulated over the generations. Analogous to what scientist Isaac Newton said about his scientific ancestors- I stand on the shoulders of giants - all humans since our origin are able to stand on the shoulders of their ancestors. This gives human a unique way of adapting in the Darwinian sense , not through random genetic mutation ( though we have that too) , but through imaginary invention that is caused by the adaptive problem it solves ; that is to say not randomly.

( I studied anthropology to a bachelors and masters degree at the University of Michigan from 1968-75 My main career has been as a lawyer , but now in retirement I teach anthropology at Wayne County Community College District in Detroit , Michigan; I was fortunate to have as my senior advisor , the great Marshall Sahlins, presente !; I’m a “Sahlinsian”, from whom I get my focus on symbols ).




http://take10charles.blogspot.com/2021/03/theory-of-structure-of-symbols-and.html

http://take10charles.blogspot.com/2021/05/identifying-something-with-something-it.html

http://take10charles.blogspot.com/2020/12/differentia-specifica-of-human-species.html

http://take10charles.blogspot.com/2017/10/cultural-darwinian-adaptations-not.html

http://take10charles.blogspot.com/2021/05/culturally-inherited-adaptations-give.html