We do not only talk with our mouths, but also with our hands. Gestures are an integral part of speech and language. The main focus of the interdisciplinary research project “Towards a grammar of gesture: evolution, brain, and linguistic structures” is the development of fundamentals for a multimodal grammar and its neurological and evolutionary foundation within specific sub-areas. One focus lies on the forms, structures, and functions of co-speech gestures alone, and another on the possible integration of co-speech gestures into theories of (vocal) grammar. The participating disciplines are linguistics and semiotics (Prof. Dr. Cornelia Müller, Dr. Ellen Fricke), neurology (Prof. Dr. Hedda Lausberg), and primatology (Dr. Katja Liebal). The Volkswagen Foundation is funding this project over a period of 3 years with a total amount of 975,000 euros.

subprojects:

P1 Gestural modes of representation in human and non-human primates

P2 Bodily contact and pragmatic function: Action, ritualization, and abstraction in human and non-human primates

P3 Neuropsychology of gestural modes of representation

P4 Structures of meaning and reference: Referential gestures: how the concrete becomes abstract

P5 Simultaneous structures of gestures in human and non-human primates

P5a Simultaneous structures of gestures in humans: Recurrent gestures (and gesture families) – proto-forms of linguistic structures in gestures

P5b Simultaneous structures of gestures in non-human primates: Recurrent gestures and proto-forms of gesture families

P5c The ontogeny of gestural communication in non-human great apes       

P6 Linear and simultaneous forms of gestural combinations in human and non-human primates

P6a Linear and simultaneous forms of gestural combination in humans

P6b Linear and simultaneous forms of gestural combination in non-human primates

P7 Neuropsychology of Aspects of Form

P8 Foundations of a grammar of gesture (including multimodal attribution and predication)

P9 Syntactic disambiguation by gesture

Scientific advisory board:

Prof. Dr. Peter Eisenberg, Universität Potsdam (Linguistics)

Prof. Pierre Feyereisen, Université Catholique de Louvain (Neurology)

Prof. Dr. Georg Goldenberg, Krankenhaus München-Bogenhausen (Neuropsychology)

Prof. David McNeill, University of Chicago (Psychology)

Prof. Dr. Roland Posner, Technische Universität Berlin (Semiotics and Linguistics)

Prof. Michael Tomasello, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology Leipzig (Evolutionary Anthropology)

Funded by the VolkswagenFoundation

Based at the European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder)