?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Adc&rft.title=Symbol+grounding+and+the+origin+of+language&rft.creator=Harnad%2C+Stevan&rft.subject=Cognitive+Psychology&rft.description=ABSTRACT%3A+What+language+allows+us+to+do+is+to+%22steal%22+categories+quickly+and+effortlessly+through+hearsay+instead+of+having+to+earn+them+the+hard+way%2C+through+risky+and+time-consuming+sensorimotor+%22toil%22+(trial-and-error+learning%2C+guided+by+corrective+feedback+from+the+consequences+of+miscategorisation).+To+make+such+linguistic+%22theft%22+possible%2C+however%2C+some%2C+at+least%2C+of+the+denoting+symbols+of+language+must+first+be+grounded+in+categories+that+have+been+earned+through+sensorimotor+toil+(or+else+in+categories+that+have+already+been+%22prepared%22+for+us+through+Darwinian+theft+by+the+genes+of+our+ancestors)%3B+it+cannot+be+linguistic+theft+all+the+way+down.+The+symbols+that+denote+categories+must+be+grounded+in+the+capacity+to+sort%2C+label+and+interact+with+the+proximal+sensorimotor+projections+of+their+distal+category-members+in+a+way+that+coheres+systematically+with+their+semantic+interpretations%2C+both+for+individual+symbols%2C+and+for+symbols+strung+together+to+express+truth-value-bearing+propositions.%0A&rft.publisher=MIT+Press&rft.contributor=Scheutz%2C+Matthias&rft.date=2002&rft.type=Book+Chapter&rft.type=NonPeerReviewed&rft.format=text%2Fhtml&rft.identifier=http%3A%2F%2Fcogprints.org%2F2133%2F1%2Fharnad02.symlang.htm&rft.identifier=++Harnad%2C+Stevan++(2002)+Symbol+grounding+and+the+origin+of+language.++%5BBook+Chapter%5D+++++&rft.relation=http%3A%2F%2Fcogprints.org%2F2133%2F