The co-evolution of number concepts and counting words

  • Humans possess a number concept that differs from its predecessors in animal cognition in two crucial respects: (1) it is based on a numerical sequence whose elements are not confined to quantitative contexts, but can indicate cardinal/quantitative as well as ordinal and even nominal properties of empirical objects (e.g. ‘five buses’: cardinal; ‘the fifth bus’: ordinal; ‘the #5 bus’: nominal), and (2) it can involve recursion and, via recursion, discrete infinity. In contrast to that, the predecessors of numerical cognition that we find in animals and human infants rely on finite and iconic representations that are limited to cardinality and do not support a unified concept of number. In this paper, I argue that the way such a unified number concept could evolve in humans is via verbal sequences that are employed as numerical tools, that is, sequences of words whose elements are associated with empirical objects in number assignments. In particular, I show that a certain kind of number words, namely the counting sequences of natural languages, can be characterised as a central instance of verbal numerical tools. I describe a possible scenario for the emergence of such verbal numerical tools in human history that starts from iconic roots and that suggests that in a process of co-evolution, the gradual emergence of counting sequences and the development of an increasingly comprehensive number concept supported each other. On this account, it is language that opened the way for numerical cognition, suggesting that it is no accident that the same species that possesses the language faculty as a unique trait, should also be the one that developed a systematic concept of number.

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Metadaten
Author:Heike WieseORCiDGND
URN:urn:nbn:de:hebis:30-1137037
URL:http://www.uni-potsdam.de/u/germanistik/fachgebiete/geg-spr/pdfs/Wiese2007_NumberCounting.pdf
Parent Title (German):Lingua
Document Type:Article
Language:English
Date of Publication (online):2009/11/10
Year of first Publication:2007
Publishing Institution:Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian Senckenberg
Release Date:2009/11/10
GND Keyword:Kognitionswissenschaft; Lexikologie
Volume:2007
Issue:117
First Page:758
Last Page:772
Source:http://www.uni-potsdam.de/u/germanistik/fachgebiete/geg-spr/pdfs/Wiese2007_NumberCounting.pdf ; (in:) Lingua, 2007, 117, S. 758-772
HeBIS-PPN:220424365
Dewey Decimal Classification:4 Sprache / 40 Sprache / 400 Sprache
Sammlungen:Germanistik / GiNDok
Linguistik
BDSL-Klassifikation:02.00.00 Deutsche Sprachwissenschaft (in Auswahl) / BDSL-Klassifikation: 02.00.00 Deutsche Sprachwissenschaft > 02.02.00 Studien
Licence (German):License LogoDeutsches Urheberrecht