What came first, the word or the ability to produce and/or comprehend it?
I’m studying cognitive processes so they say we’re hard wired to do language … written/read included … as evidenced by double dissociation revealed in damaged brain studies.
Got me thankin 
(I am, therefore I think?)
Apologies if other threads go unanswered.
The first level of language are exclamation of pleasure or cries of pain, like "yay"or “ouch”. They are close to pure spontaneous verbal expressions of feeling which are pre-linguistic. Those come first. But, they’re not really words. And, even those can be understood by someone who’s experienced similar feelings through the capacity of empathy which means “feeling along with”. I would say that capacity precedes the formation of actual words. You can see it, for example in cats, like a mother cat who responds to the hunger cries of its kittens.
I think the argument is reductive, seeking a generalized certainty, which cannot work deductively because it is full of the opposing specific gaps, which hinder such certainty.
However, the arrival to a probable premisses,: such as is consistent with cognative functions based on various possible mistakenly held( judged) sub-premises, is possible.
The most likely scenario is quasi-absurd conclusions, such as those which place an either/ or logic, the type that Shakespeare experiments within and without it.
To be, or not to be is a pivotal paradigmn example, where both states of consciously manifested being can be weighed against existential parameters fail the test of identifiable correlation.
‘I am’ is such an existential condition which seeks reduction to the conscious regressive process of the underlying conditions, (of awareness of sensing It’s self.)
The ‘It’ is not conditional to the other, as Heidegger tries to point out, but a cyclical reintegration of slightly different but unobservable minimal changes can create the simulated effect reversely.
So the only. conclusion which can both make sense and satisfy the criteria is, that both are logically and sensually connected by differently leveled links.
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How could a word exist at all if there is no means to produce or comprehend it? What would it be?
obsrvr524 >> believe it or not it is possible to start answering a question before you have all of the information you need(but like I said: start answering). This is based on the idea that we get better at doing any given thing by applying what we already know - this is also applicable to things we have not learned yet.
Whether the answer is fitting of the question is a sign of the relationship between the question and the context. With limited context, it is useful to dig for clues in what else has been written in this case instead of focusing on the question itself.
. . . the question . . .
. . . and what else has been written . . .
With this being said there are a couple of things to note: given that I have witnessed you post different information on this forum and what that information contains tells me that you know how to read and write, I would also have to assume based on that observation that you also know how to think. This takes me back to this: believe it or not it is possible to start answering a question before you have all of the information you need.
I will be honest and say that upon my initial inspection of the OP I became fixated on the question because of a deeper philosophical motivation(I hope that makes sense) and started wondering about it for a little while. Many things popped into my head such as:
. . . this is to only name but two thoughts . . . at some point, after the many things that popped into my head I had reached the conclusion that I needed more information, so I proceeded to perform a couple of searches in google to see what would happen. To the best of my knowledge, I think what the OP is referring to is this: Wernicke’s area and Broca’s area(these are two areas in the brain ) and the following definition: Aphasia is an inability to comprehend or formulate language because of damage to specific brain regions. I got this information by inputting the OP’s question “What came first, the word or the ability to produce and/or comprehend it?”
I then proceeded to do another search based on the following term: double dissociation(as mentioned in the OP) - this yielded a nice little explanation at the top of google as follows: Double Dissociation is when two related mental processes are shown to function independently of each other. A classic example of Double Dissociation is speech and language comprehension. Although both processes pertain to the use of language, the brain structures that control them work independently.
. . . then I read something about a person suffering from a condition(perhaps aphasia) whereby they could speak fluently but could not understand what was being said to them and if I recall correctly they also could not understand what they read . . . so essentially, I too am not sure at this point what is going on because I ran out of time to build more context for myself . . . but it seems like an interesting topic, so I will keep checking back here.
Brilliant. I love it when people actual do a little research before blathering on with naive opinion. If people would do that with politics, the entire world would be a different place. 
That reminded me of my response to Felix Dakat’s thread OP about “Disjunctive Communication” (oddly posted in the religion section). My response was - “I don’t get it”. I don’t think that he has yet figured out the significance of that response although it looks like Iambiguous might lead him there.
I agree that the topic of how the brain deals with language is interesting (although not terribly useful to a layman - it either works or doesn’t). Like many things I find on this board I had never heard of “double dissociation” (still wondering what makes it “double”). I appreciate your diligence. I think I had heard that different areas of the brain deal with different functional processes - makes sense.
So my question is (like Felix Dakat) - Did the OP ask the right question?
Is there an on going dissociation with the deeper investigation of topics of interest and the more philosophical (thus language) issue of how to address such investigations? - Are the right questions being asked that would lead to the intended result? - largely associated with the Disjunctive Communication discussion.
In both cases it appears that the OP is an example of the issue it raises.
The question asked here is - “which came first?” - a philosophical question that immediately leads to the inquiry of what it is that might have come first - a “word” or an ability to use it. Sp - what exactly is a word?
A word is object that people produce in order to relay an understanding. If it is proposed that no one can produce or understand the proposed object - then that object could not be a “word”. It is just an issue of definition.
But perhaps I am being too pedantic. Perhaps the OP’s intent was, as you suggest, to discuss the issue of double dissociation concerning language and merely proposed the discussion in an misleading manner. I figured by perhaps pointing out the obvious, the OP could redress his intent (again similar to Felix Dakat’s thread).
The topic here is dissociation in language use. Doesn’t that apply to the dissociation between an intended OP discussion topic and what was actually posted?
What was posted was a philosophical question concerning what came first. Was the real intent (perhaps “double dissociated”) an inquiry concerning how the brain processes language (a seemingly more appropriate discussion - although one which I am not qualified to enter)? To me once the brain is damaged, all bets are off (not that it couldn’t be repaired - but until then —).
Ah, close, friend. You’re so close.
We can observe that small children understand certain words - more exactly: the meaning of certain words (in certain situations) - already when they are not capable of producing words themselves yet.
The prehistoric people probably already had certain meanings for words when they could not speak them yet. At that time these meanings were represented by other signs, e.g. by gestural or/and mimic signs, both more and more combined with phonetic signs (but these phonetic signs could not yet be combined into words at that time).
When they later realized that due to a physiological change (lowering of the larynx) they could produce many more phonetic signs than before, the meanings shifted from a system based on the combination of gestural, mimic and phonetic signs to a more complex system based on more phonetic signs that could be combined to words.
Evolutionarily said, the probability of words appearing and the probability of beings with the ability to use words appearing are about equally small. But if one of the two possibilities is there, then the other possibility is also there. Why should e.g. a being that can use words not be able to find corresponding words? Or the other way round: Why should e.g. words, if they have already appeared, not find beings which use words? Do you notice that the answer of your question presupposes the existence of beings which know what words are and at the same time presupposes just existence of words?
By the way: Words alone are not yet the only meaningful thing of a language. The meaningfulness of a language results from the combination of words to sentences and texts, i.e. to the syntax, to the grammar, to the linguistic language.
And again, exactly what I just wrote can be observed in small children too: The words they use are soon meant as sentences - one-word sentences -, and these one-word sentences are followed by two-word sentences, then three-word sentences up to multi-word sentences, with which syntax is then largely mastered.
So, (a) in one way the words are there earlier than the sentences (that is the way they interpret by the culture already educated elders), but (b) in the other way the sentences are there earlier than the words. With words, one usually does not want to say something word-like, but more: to express a meaning that goes beyond words, i.e.: sentences or texts.
As long as all this does not work linguistically, it already works semiotically. And this is also confirmed by the observations.
What throw-stuff is for language development, play-stuff is for language acquisition.
Kathrina says:
“When they later realized that due to a physiological change (lowering of the larynx) they could produce many more phonetic signs than before, the meanings shifted from a system based on the combination of gestural, mimic and phonetic signs to a more complex system based on more phonetic signs that could be combined to words.”
I agree, the question of what evolves from what first is a tie in here.
Is it the firm or the content which works determinately, from a supposed/conjured inception or reversely? If it reversely works as dies similarly hypothesized matter/antimatter, then the very problem of indeterminancy is raised ex post, facto, a relative infinitely recurrent sets of matrix levels become enlightened, and such differenciations make the argument irresolute. Both ways can equally justify each other, and more coherent albeit more generalized sets if criteria (categories) rise to the surface(syntax)
Who speaks what cannot (should not) already be understood?
Y’all know what folks are gonna study. That’s cheating.
Those who think hypothetically, in words which are meaningful without contextual linkage. But within context, associated meaning , similar is required.
Down the line in a world far away and long before and/ or after, it may make some sense.
Sometimes cheating becomes not what it was intended as currently seen
“ Sometimes cheating becomes not what it was intended as currently seen”
And what is the current (or what was the original/former) intention?
Really there is only one. Nothing new under it.
Why would independent structures for language evolve to work in concert before we can even speak? How it happens in babies requires someone outside the baby who already has language to teach them. Who got us talking?
There used to be an interactive National Geographic map tracking the migration out of Africa (but what if we started in the Americas & went in reverse? or by boat?). They should put that back up, and with it track languages.
Perhaps because some sort of re sonance that may have been the causal factor between it and recognition of the pattern as relational.
This process may even preempt reflection, in a relative sense, even before humanitie’s babyhood or even that of organic matter.
The musical 'Unasnswered Question ’ signifies a metalogical connection . The musical functional base of music further may exemplify a higher order example of this embedded process.
hm
Maybe I need to revisit the Silmarillion.
What came first is the ability to use it - i.e., the use of language to communicate. For example, I came across a study a few years ago that said that Chinese characters were born from pictographs. The communicative ability must have come first in the evolutionary process… It was this ability that made language capable of being a tool of social bonding, which allowed it in turn to be an extension of the self. Then it was that the written language was formed as a cultural artifact, a technological device in itself, and a device to control others. In short, we are hardwired to speak language.
Language = thought = words which are more sophisticated forms of symbols
Words = images/symbols which are more sophisticated forms of spoken language
“Language” is the ability to express emotions and feelings through specific actions and/or words (and sounds) in a particular culture (ie, your own or your mother’s). This “Language” also evolves into other more abstract “Language” which we speak that have less to do with emotions and feelings (which are in our “subconscious”, not the “conscious” mind) and more to do with “concepts” such as “I” and “think”.
That could only happen after death, maybe? and who knows how many quadrillion of those exist?
Let us not jump to inordinate conclusions.
I just meant I wanted to re-read it. Or finish reading it. It’s been so long (rather, my memory is such that) I don’t remember if I even finished it.
Can we switch gears? I cannot be a concept, just as the hand cannot be the cup. Prove me wrong.
As soon as we’ve uttered/declared a thing, we’ve admitted it is not subconscious (or implied/implicit, nondeclarative).