I liked the example of the grand-daughter and the doll a lot. The best
thing about it is actually that being around kids that age you could
harvest _basketfuls_ of these examples. For the adult participants it IS a
period of re-discovering the world and our culture from toddler
perspective, even when you are the (often exhausted) parent.
Why I was a bit flippant with Mike was because the phylogenetic problem of
humans becoming humans demands a language-independent solution, something
to pave the way for speech. (Actually, I think Mike was joking a bit, too.)
On the other hand, what you, Vera, add about the (asymmetric) reciprocity
of imitation in language aquisition (imitation and expansion of toddler
utterances by more experienced speakers etc.) is probably relevant to
phylogenesis as well as to ontogenesis -- the nature of the co-regulative
system of proto-humans possibly hade some of these characteristics of
mutual (complementary) attention to style-of-activity. Apes simply may not
be fussy enough about manners!
Eva
who spent to much time in the sun today
watching the Tall Ships parading out of G=F6teborg