Grounding language performance in the anticipatory dynamics of the body

Speech acts, conversations, and other language activities emerge from anticipatory dynamics that situate minds and bodies near critical states. Critical states entail a kind of symmetry in which possible actions exist simultaneously as propensities to act. To speak or understand is to break the symmetry of these possibilities and realize the utterance that is expressed. This hypothesis is derived from complexity theory and agrees with findings that concern action generally and linguistic performance in particular.