Language as Symbolization

Abstract

Language is viewed as a system in which semological structures, manifested in experience, are symbolized by phonological structures, manifested in sound. Other animal communication systems exhibit a one-to-one symbolization of semological units by phonological units. The evolutionary expansion of human experience was accompanied by developments through which language came to diverge radically from the one-to-one model. Shorter term (non-evolutionary) change also has led language away from one-to-one symbolization, as exemplified here by the effects of phonological change and (on the semological side) of idiom formation. In consequence of both its evolutionary and non-evolutionary history, language exhibits an initial organization of experience within deep semology, a set of mutations which lead to surface semology, an initial phonological symbolization, and another set of mutations which lead to a final phonological organization manifested in sound. The place of separate semantic and syntactic components within such a system is questioned.