"Coherence, connectivity and the fitting together of smaller parts into larger structures are the hallmark of complex biologically-based organized systems. As an internal constraint, coherence allows the parts to work together as a whole. As an external constraint, it lets systems evolve and adapt to novel contexts. As a constraint on information processing, it makes new knowledge accessible to the evolving, maturing, learning mind-brain. As a constraint on cultures, it enables social groups to cooperate. And as a constraint on communication, it allows the language and mind of speakers be accessible to hearers. In this inspiring monograph Givón explores the coherence of biological organisms, the structural and functional coherence of the complex human mind-brain, the evolution of complex social organization and cultures, the coherence of language and communication, as well as relevant offshoots of cognition, socio-culture and communication"--.

• Coherence
• Title page
• Editorial page
• Table of contents
• Chapter 1. Introduction
• Chapter 2. Complexity and coherence in biological design:: An evolutionary-developmental account
  • 2.1 Systems: Complexity, hierarchy and coherence
    • 2.1.1 Networks of matching structures and functions
    • 2.1.2 Complexity and hierarchic structure
    • 2.1.3 Is pre-biological complex organization the same?
  • 2.2 The rise of complex coherence in biological design
    • 2.2.1 From parasitic bacteria to symbiotic organelles in the protozoan cell
    • 2.2.2 From protozoa to metazoa: The rise of multi-cellular organisms
  • 2.3 Intermezzo: Spatio-temporal experience and the advent of dimensions
    • 2.3.1 Preliminaries
    • 2.3.2 Experience in a one-dimensional universe of linear time
    • 2.3.3 Experience in a universe of time plus one spatial dimension: Early upright organisms
    • 2.3.4 Motion and the advent of a three-dimensional universe
    • 2.3.5 Purposive motion and the advent of agency
  • 2.4 From early multi-cell simplicity to tissues, organs and system complexity
  • 2.5 Body design, molecular classification and evolutionary hierarchies
  • 2.6 Final reflections
    • 2.6.1 Coherence and context in biological design
      • 2.6.1.1 Internal coherence
      • 2.6.1.2 External coherence
    • 2.6.2 The seesaw of size aggregation
• Chapter 3. Complexity, hierarchy and coherence in neuro-cognition
  • 3.1 Recapitulation
  • 3.2 The primate brain
    • 3.2.1 General architecture: The three brains
    • 3.2.2 Perception, cognition and coherence control
  • 3.3 General architecture: Periphery to core – and back
  • 3.4 Three function-specific cortical networks
    • 3.4.1 The visual information network
    • 3.4.2 The attentional network
    • 3.4.3 The working memory network
    • 3.4.4 What of language?
  • 3.5 Other major mental representational systems
    • 3.5.1 Overview
    • 3.5.2 Long-term semantic memory
    • 3.5.3 Episodic and/or ‘declarative’ memory
    • 3.5.4 Attention and working memory
  • 3.6 Attended vs. automated processing
  • 3.7 Automaticity, complexity, hierarchy and coherence
  • Acknowledgements
• Chapter 4. Cultural coherence:: The Society of Intimates
  • 4.1 Introduction
    • 4.1.1 The social context of inter-personal cooperation and communication
    • 4.1.2 Rational choice vs. implicit conventions
  • 4.2 The Society of Intimates
    • 4.2.1 Preliminaries
    • 4.2.2 General characteristics
  • 4.3 Kinship-based cooperation: The Trobriand case
    • 4.3.1 Land ownership, land-use and residence
    • 4.3.2 Kinship and marriage
    • 4.3.3 The life-cycle of cooperation
    • 4.3.4 Kinship and reciprocity
    • 4.3.5 The adaptive logic of the Trobriand yam exchange
  • 4.4 Reciprocity and kinship hierarchies: Ute
  • 4.5 Dealing with strangers
    • 4.5.1 Estrangement and de-alienation: The Western Apache
    • 4.5.2 Other contexts of de-alienation
  • 4.6 Mitigating the hazards of communication
    • 4.6.1 Preamble
    • 4.6.2 Private discourse and the costs of new information
  • 4.7 Culture a mechanism for automated social action
  • 4.8 The persistent relevance of the Society of Intimates
  • 4.9 Closure
    • a. Cultural coherence
    • b. Public intimacy
    • c. Residual spheres of intimacy
  • Acknowledgements
• Chapter 5. Language, coherence and other minds
  • 5.1 Context as other minds
  • 5.2 Grammar and other minds
    • 5.2.1 The grounding of definite referents
      • a. Grounding definite referents to the shared lexicon
      • b. Grounding definite referents to the current speech situation
      • c. Grounding definite referents to the shared current discourse
    • 5.2.2 Speech acts: Access to the interlocutor’s epistemic and deontic states
    • 5.2.3 Negation and other minds
  • 5.3 Relevant social unit and shared cognition
  • 5.4 Reasoning by feature association – the wrong metaphor?
  • 5.5 Intermezzo: Other minds and ‘Theory of Mind’
  • 5.6 Grammar and communication
    • 5.6.1 Developmental-evolutionary perspective
    • 5.6.2 Grammar as structure
    • 5.6.3 Grammar as adaptive function
    • 5.6.4 Communicating without grammar
  • 5.7 The whys of grammar: Context, automaticity and other minds
  • Acknowledgements
• Chapter 6. Discourse coherence
  • 6.1 Re-orientation
  • 6.2 The coherence structure of discourse
  • 6.3 Referential coherence as grounding
    • 6.3.1 Continuity, connectivity and grounding
    • 6.3.2 Temporal axis: Anaphoric vs. cataphoric grounding
  • 6.4 Intermezzo: The domain of reference
    • 6.4.1 Truth and reference in the Real World
    • 6.4.2 Referential intent in a universe of discourse
    • 6.4.3 Reference and propositional modalities
    • 6.4.4 Reference vs. topicality/importance
  • 6.5 The grammar of anaphoric continuity
    • 6.5.1 High-continuity grammatical devices
    • 6.5.2 Low-continuity devices
  • 6.6 Quantitative text-distribution of major referent-coding devices
    • 6.6.1 Preliminaries
    • 6.6.2 Individual languages
      • a. Written English
      • b. Spoken Ute
      • c. Biblical Hebrew
      • d. Spoken Spanish
      • e. Japanese
      • f. Mandarin Chinese
    • 6.6.3 Word order, topicality and referential continuity
      • a. Word-order and referential continuity in spoken English
      • b. Word order and referential continuity in spoken Ute
      • c. Word-order, tense-aspect and referential continuity in Early Biblical Hebrew
    • 6.6.4 Interim summary
  • 6.7 The grammar of referential coherence as mental processing instructions
    • 6.7.1 Preamble
    • 6.7.2 Filing and storage conventions
    • 6.7.3 Cognitive operations
  • 6.8 Discussion
  • Abbreviations of grammatical terms
• Chapter 7. Coherence and clause chaining
  • 7.1 Re-orientation
  • 7.2 Recapitulation I: Clause-chains and thematic coherence
  • 7.3 Recapitulation II: The grammar of referential coherence
    • 7.3.1 General outline
    • 7.3.2 Highest continuity devices
    • 7.3.3 Short-distance discontinuity devices
    • 7.3.4 Long-distance discontinuity devices
    • 7.3.5 From anaphoric to catapohoric continuity
  • 7.4 The grammaticalization of clause chaining
    • 7.4.1 Pre-grammar baseline: Second-language pidgin
    • 7.4.2 Zero (SS) vs. independent pronoun (DS): Ute
    • 7.4.3 Agreement (SS) vs. independent pronouns (DS): Bantu, Romance
  • 7.5 Complex grammaticalization of continuing reference (SS) vs. switch-reference (DS)
    • 7.5.1 Preliminaries
    • 7.5.2 Early-stages of complex grammaticalization: Kanite, Kosena
    • 7.5.3 Late-stage complex grammaticalization
  • 7.6 Finiteness gradients and clause chaining
    • 7.6.1 Finiteness: A brief introduction
    • 7.6.2 Participials with case-agreement: Jiwarli
  • 7.7 Clause-chaining and discourse coherence
  • Acknowledgements
  • Abbreviations of grammatical terms
• Chapter 8. The coherence of organized science
  • 8.1 The scientist vs. the organism
  • 8.2 Reductionist extremes in the philosophy of science
    • 8.2.1 Preamble
    • 8.2.2 Deductivist accounts
    • 8.2.3 Inductivist accounts
  • 8.3 Pragmatics in empirical science
    • 8.3.1 Preamble
    • 8.3.2 Theory-laden facts
    • 8.3.3 Abductive inference
    • 8.3.4 Role of the three inference types in the empirical cycle
  • 8.4 Explanation as contextual coherence
    • 8.4.1 Deductive ‘explanations’
    • 8.4.2 The pragmatics of explanation
  • 8.5 Causal explanation
    • 8.5.1 Preamble
    • 8.5.2 The ontology of causation
      • 8.5.2.1 From temporal order to logical conditionality
      • 8.5.2.2 From conditionality to causality
      • 8.5.2.3 From causality to agency
      • 8.5.2.4 Volitional motion, purposive action and agency
  • 8.6 Functional explanation
  • 8.7 Closure
  • Acknowledgements
• Chapter 9. Coherence and human nature:: Are we a warlike species?
  • 9.1 Nature vs. artifice
  • 9.2 Judaic antiquity
  • 9.3 Christian antiquity
  • 9.4 Greek antiquity
    • 9.4.1 Epicure (404–323 BC)
    • 9.4.2 Aristotle (384–322 BC)
    • 9.4.3 Plato (427–347 BC)
  • 9.5 The Enlightenment
    • 9.5.1 The chain of transmission
    • 9.5.2 Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679)
    • 9.5.3 J.-J. Rousseau (1712–1778)
    • 9.5.4 Adam Smith (1723–1790)
      • a. The Theory of Moral Sentiment (1759)
      • b. The Wealth of Nations (1776)
    • 9.5.5 Charles Darwin (1809–1882)
      • a. The Origin of Species (1859)
      • b. The Descent of Man (1871)
  • 9.6 The post-Darwinian synthesis
    • 9.6.1 Overview
    • 9.6.2 Selfishness, altruism and natural selection
    • 9.6.3 Empathy and cooperation in primates and children
    • 9.6.4 The gender dimension
  • 9.7 Cooperation, morality and the in-out boundary
  • 9.8 Human nature and social coherence
  • 9.9 Closure
  • Acknowledgements
• Chapter 10. Coherence and the bounds of diversity
  • 10.1 Preface
  • 10.2 Diversity and invariance in evolutionary biology
    • 10.2.1 The Darwinian model
    • 10.2.2 Post-Darwinian evolutionary biology
      • 10.2.2.1 Variation
      • 10.2.2.2 Invariance
      • 10.2.2.3 Selection
  • 10.3 The durability of an old social adaptation
    • 10.3.1 Preliminaries
    • 10.3.2 Information and communication in the Society of Intimates
      • 10.3.2.1 Types of mental representation
      • 10.3.2.2 Evolved communication
  • 10.4 The Society of Strangers
  • 10.5 Human nature
    • 10.5.1 Recapitulation
    • 10.5.2 Empathy, altruism and cooperation
  • 10.6 The conundrum of diversity and the mirage of multi-culturalism
    • 10.6.1 Preamble
    • 10.6.2 The wages of excess diversity
    • 10.6.3 Color is, well, visible
    • 10.6.4 Tale of two cultures
    • 10.6.5 Gender, again
  • 10.7 Is there a way out?
    • 10.7.1 Back to nature vs. artifice
    • 10.7.2 The religious option
    • 10.7.3 The state’s option
    • 10.7.4 The neuro-scientist’s option
    • 10.7.5 Hyper-sociality or A.I.?
  • 10.8 Final note
  • Acknowledgements
• General index