The Human Sign and the Animal Signal
Human language differs from animal communication not primarily in complexity or quantity of information conveyed, but in its fundamental mode of operation. As Katz writes in Addressing an Objection to the Originary Hypothesis, "The point of the originary hypothesis is to account not so much for the superiority of human language over that of our ape cousins as for its different mode of operation, through symbols as opposed to “indexical” signals."1. The distinction is not merely gradational. As Katz continues, "a [human] language of conventional signs, even if at the start it doesn't communicate very much information, has an essentially unbounded capacity for such communication, whereas animal signal systems do not"1. The gap between animal signal and human symbol is therefore a qualitative one: the human sign opens onto an infinite recursive space that the animal signal forecloses.
The root of this difference, in Katz's later formulation, lies in what he calls scenic cognition. In Addressing an Objection to the Originary Hypothesis, Katz proposes that "humanity, just prior to language, is defined by scenic cognition" — understood as "the ability to see different things in relation, that is, in spatial and temporal and in comparative relation to other things"1. This scenic cognition, he argues, "a prerequisite not for ostensive signs—“lion,” “water,” perhaps even “danger”—but for mature, which is to say, recursive (prepositional, spatial, temporal) language"1. Animal systems remain, in this sense, at the level of the indexical ostensive: pointing to what is immediately there, without embedding one scene within another.
The key concept distinguishing human from animal language is recursion. Katz argues that "the difference between a human language of conventional signs and animal (and, likely, hominin) signal systems is that the former is what it is due to recursion and the latter is what it is due to a lack of recursion"1. Recursion and prepositionality are themselves scenic: "the scene itself is recursive and prepositional, requiring a cognition that can see in such a way: scenically. Parts are embedded or nested in other parts, and isolatable from other parts; and stand in relation to other parts, enjoying significance as a result"1. Animal signals, by contrast, are bounded by what is indexically present and cannot construct absent objects or embed relational scenes within one another.
This difference has important stakes for how Center Study treats the sign itself. In The Sign, Katz warns that treating human signification as continuous with animal communication — as the cybernetic tradition tends to do — collapses a crucial distinction: "it is very easy — it's the path of least resistance, especially in the wake of the cybernetic revolution — to treat the entire universe as a semiotic system, with human signification being qualitatively no different than, say the 'exchange' of pheromones that initiates the mating sequence of a pair of insects"2. Katz further notes that "Peirce’s “indexical” sign reaches back into the non-human in this way,"2. The ethical stakes of maintaining this distinction are made explicit in Attentionality and Originary Ethics, where Katz writes that "the primary transformation of the protohuman into the human was ethical"3 — suggesting that what separates human language from animal communication is not a feature of information-processing alone, but the scene of mutual deferral in which the sign first emerged.
The most concentrated formulation of this difference comes from Attentionality and Originary Ethics: "Eric Gans’s analysis of the primary linguistic forms in The Origin of Language makes it possible to see the imperative as a deferral of the ostensive, under conditions where an ostensive would likely fail and exacerbate the violence it is meant to stay (interestingly first turned into an imperative by the one obeying the command); the declarative, meanwhile, is a deferral of the imperative, when that speech act is unlikely to be fulfilled"3. Animal signals know no such internal succession of deferrals; they remain at the level of the indexical ostensive, unable to construct the scene of mutual attention from which, in the originary hypothesis, the fully human sign — and with it, an unbounded linguistic capacity — first emerged.
Excerpts
"The point of the originary hypothesis is to account not so much for the superiority of human language over that of our ape cousins as for its different mode of operation, through symbols as opposed to “indexical” signals. [. . . ] Apes can no doubt communicate all sorts of things [using those signals]. But a [human] language of conventional signs, even if at the start it doesn’t communicate very much information, has an essentially unbounded capacity for such communication, whereas animal signal systems do not."
Addressing an Objection to the Originary Hypothesis · Substack Read →
"One problem caused by the metaphysical dualism of “sign” is that it insufficiently distinguishes between human and animal and even non-organic “communication” or “exchange of information.” It is very easy—it’s the path of least resistance, especially in the wake of the cybernetic revolution—to treat the entire universe as a semiotic system, with human signification being qualitatively no different than, say the “exchange” of pheromones that initiates the mating sequence of a pair of insects. Peirce’s “indexical” sign reaches back into the non-human in this way, and it would be possible to analyze the iconic and symbolic as more complex articulations of indexical signs."
The Sign · Substack Read →
"In all the years in which I have attempted to explain GA in writing and in speech, I have tended to place the major emphasis on representation, and in particular on “formal representation” or language. One of the points I have insisted on is that human language is qualitatively different from animal “languages”; the researches and insights of such as Terrence Deacon have essentially ended the debate on this point. But it follows from my very “definition” of the human as the species that poses a greater problem to its own survival than the totality of forces outside the human community that the primary transformation of the proto-human into the human was ethical."
Attentionality and Originary Ethics: Upclining · PDF Read →
"What I think Gans is actually indicating here is the difference between mere signs that are more or less indexical and recursive language. The latter, via prepositions, is potentially infinite. The former is squarely limited to things that are there. The difference between a human language of conventional signs and animal (and, likely, hominin) signal systems is that the former is what it is due to recursion and the latter is what it is due to a lack of recursion."
Addressing an Objection to the Originary Hypothesis · Substack Read →
"The virtual presence of human communication is not—today nor in the beginning—simply an "open channel," but an essentially suspicious one. It is this suspicious nature of linguistic communication, its requirement of guarantees, that is at the basis of the severity of the norms which pervade language at all levels, from the phonetic to the logical and esthetic."
Originary Mistakenness, Defilement and Modernity · PDF Read →
"There is a term that Gans uses throughout The Origin of Language that I think can be translated directly into “sustain the center”: “linguistic presence.” Maintaining linguistic presence is the urgent imperative that takes us through the succession of speech acts, from the ostensive, through the imperative and to the declarative. At each point a potential break in linguistic presence, which always means a potential outbreak of violence, is what forces the transition from one speech form to another."
Semiotic Engineering · GABlog Read →