| Abstract | [Introduction]
Language is form, not substance. Yet every semiotic system is surely constrained by its mode of expression. Communication by odor, for example, is limited by the relatively slow rates at which volatile chemicals disperse and smell receptors adapt. By the same token, we might suppose that the nature of sound, temporally distributed and rapidly fading, has shaped the structure of language. But it is not obvious how. What properties of language reflect its expressive mode? What properties reflect general cognitive constraints necessary to any imaginable expression of human language? How far are those constraints themselves a function of the mode in which language has evolved? |
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