Markus Werning: "The Complexity First Paradox: Why Do Semantically Thick Concepts So Early Lexicalize As Nouns?"

The Complex-First Paradox regards the semantics of nouns and consists of a set of together incompatible, but individually well confirmed propositions about the evolution and development of language, the semantics of word classes and the cortical realization of word meaning. Theoretical and empirical considerations support the view that the concepts expressed by concrete nouns – typically substance concepts – are more complex and their neural realizations more widely distributed in cortex than those expressed by other word classes. For a cortically implemented syntax-semantics interface, the more widely distributed a concept’s neural realization is, the more effort it takes to establish a link between the concept and its expression. If one assumes the principle that in ontogeny and phylogeny capabilities demanding more effort develop, respectively, evolve later than those demanding less effort, the empirical observation seems paradoxical that the meanings of concrete nouns, in ontogeny and phylogeny, are acquired earlier than those of other word classes. The talk defends the propositions that form the paradox and discusses a number of popular, but insufficient solutions.

The talk is based on a paper that appeared in a special issue of Interaction Studies on Holophrasis versus Compositionality in the Emergence of Protolanguage edited by Michael Arbib and Derek Bickerton.