ABSTRACT
This chapter places certain elements of the evolution of language in a psychoanalytic perspective. It posits the development of intonation and gesture as the initial point for symbolic language and demonstrates correspondences with the motivated word segmentations discussed in the psychoanalytic account of verbal parapraxes. It revisits the theories of the primal horde put forth by Darwin and Freud and coordinates these with research in linguistic anthropology that places the origin of syntax within primate male bonding and reciprocal altruism. This would have been a collaboration that arose in resistance to single male dominance. This is related to psychoanalytic theories of totemism and the fraternal rebellion against the patriarch.
