%A Robin Allott
%J Syntactic Iconicity and Linguistic Freezes: The Human Dimension
%T MOTOR THEORY OF LANGUAGE IN RELATION TO SYNTAX
%X The semantic, syntactic and phonetic structures of language develop from a complex preexisting system, more specifically the preexisting motor system. Language thus emerged as an external physical expression of the neural basis for movement control. Features which made a wide range of skilled action possible - a set of elementary motor subprograms together with rules expressed in neural organization for combining subprograms into extended action sequences - were transferred to form a parallel set of programs and rules for speech and language. The already established integration of motor control with perceptual organization led directly to a systematic relation between language and the externally perceived world.
%K motor control, motor theory, syntax, exaptation, action grammar, vision syntax, word categories, function words, word ordering
%P 307-329
%E Marge E. Landsberg
%D 1995
%I Mouton de Gruyter
%L cogprints4972

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