The Emergence of Protolanguage -- Editorial page -- Title page -- LCC data -- Untitled -- Table of contents -- Preface -- Is a holistic protolanguage a plausible precursor to language? -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Learning by segmentation and the analysis process -- 3. Criticism 1: Can Homo analyse? -- 3.1 Can modern humans analyse? -- 3.2 Could earlier hominids analyse? -- 3.3 Can Homo analyse: A summary -- 4. Criticism 2: Can analysis tolerate counter-examples? -- 4.1 Claim 1: The existence of counter-examples -- 4.2 Dealing with counter-examples -- 4.3 Counter-examples: A summary -- 5. Criticism 3: Does analysis violate the uniformitarian assumption? -- 6. Conclusions -- Acknowledgements -- Notes -- References -- Author's address -- About the author -- Proto-discourse and the emergence of compositionality -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Discourse as sequenced communicative behaviour -- 3. From joint attention to words -- 4. From words to combinations -- 5. Conclusion -- Acknowledgements -- Notes -- References -- Author's address -- Protolanguage in ontogeny and phylogeny -- Method -- Children -- Apes -- Combining gesture with and word or lexigram: Parallel phenomena in child and ape -- Frequency of different kinds of two-element combinations -- Developmental sequencing -- Indication -- Agent-action relation -- Object associated with another object or location -- Sources of ape-child differences in gesture-symbol combinations -- Unique to human children: Constructing messages indicating possession -- Deixis plus representation as a dynamic force in language ontogeny: Implications for protolanguage -- References -- Author's addresses -- From metonymy to syntax in the communication of events -- 1. The plausibility of protolanguage -- 2. Protopragmatics -- 3. Protosemantics -- 3.1 The deictic stage -- 3.2 Meaning fractionation vs. combination.

3.3 Multi-metonymy: Compositionality without syntax -- 3.4 Ambiguity and inference -- 4. The functions of protolanguage -- 4.1 Proximal functions -- 4.2 Ultimate functions -- 4.3 The 'first-to-know' display -- 5. Discussion -- 6. From protolanguage to language -- 7. Conclusion -- Notes -- References -- The "complex first" paradox -- Words and concepts -- Nouns and adjectives -- The structure of meaning -- Situated conceptualization and the theory of neuro-frames -- Evolution and development of the syntax-semantics interface -- Acknowledgements -- References -- Holophrastic protolanguage -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Conceptual planning: Implications for protolanguage -- 3. Idioms, processing and complexity -- 4. Lexical constraints on word learning -- Notes -- References -- Protolanguage reconstructed -- 1. Introduction -- 2. The nature of protolanguage -- 2.1 Synthetic complexification -- 2.2 Analytic complexification -- 2.3 Semantic complexity -- 3. Protolinguistic communication -- 3.1 Coded communication -- 3.2 Inferential communication -- 4. The consequences of meaning inference -- 4.1 Variation -- 4.2 Reconstructibility -- 5. Complexification -- 5.1 Semantic complexification -- 5.2 Syntactic complexification -- 5.3 To language -- 6. Conclusion -- Acknowledgments -- Notes -- References -- Growth points from the very beginning -- Across time scales -- Gestures and speech - Two simultaneous modes of semiosis -- Kendon's continuum -- The growth point -- A thought-language-hand brain link -- The IW case -- GPs and language evolution -- 'Mead's Loop' and mirror neurons -- But not 'gesture-first' -- Conclusions -- Notes -- References -- The roots of linguistic organization in a new language -- Duality of patterning -- Prosody -- Syntax -- Words -- Phrases -- Sentences -- Units larger than a clause -- Recursion -- Morphology -- Conclusion -- Notes.

References -- Holophrasis and the protolanguage spectrum -- 1. Introduction -- 2. An evolutionary scenario in which holophrasis plays a key role -- The Mirror System Hypothesis (MSH) -- Construction grammar versus universal grammar -- From holophrasis to compositionality -- The emergence of phonology -- 3. Facing up to common problems -- 4. Defending the holophrastic view -- From situations to protowords -- Predicates and Categories -- Simplicity is complicated -- Grammar emerges -- References -- Author's address -- But how did protolanguage actually start? -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Critical differences between human and non-human communication -- 3. Relevance to the holophrasis-compositionality debate -- 4. The need for a paleoanthropological approach -- References -- About the author -- Name Index -- Subject index -- The series Benjamins Current Topics (BCT).