Frontmatter -- Introduction -- PART I Evolution and biosemiosis -- Breathing life into signs: Ways and means of semiosic transition and transformation -- Semiotic principles and systems: Biological foundations of semiotics -- Opposition at the roots of semiosis -- Primate nonverbal communication: Our communicative heritage -- PART II Anthroposemiotic sociogenesis and cultural semiogenesis -- The problem of certainty in human communication: An evolutionary view -- The culture of nature: The semiotic dimensions of microcosm, mesocosm, and macrocosm -- Evolution of human semiosis and the reading of animal tracks -- Analysis of a human releasing mechanism -- Early social games reconsidered: Culture at play -- Infant semiosis -- PART III Glottogenesis: Phylogeny, ontogeny, and actogeny -- Language and the origin of semiosis -- Language evolution: A Darwinian process -- Deep reconstruction of languages and semantics -- Material time and formal time: Genetically and metagenetically -- The agent and the sentient: A dissymmetry in linguistic and cultural encoding -- Language and brain -- INTERCHAPTER -- Structure as idyll: The genesis of meaning in nature -- PART IV Eikonogenesis and graphogenesis -- Constants in 40,000 years of art -- Deixis vs. modeling in the phytogeny of artistic behavior -- Children's drawings: Ontogenetic aspects and phylogenetic roots -- Can a picture tell a thousand words? Interpreting sequential vs. holistic graphic messages -- Writing, inscription, and text -- PART V Appendix -- List of contributors -- Index of names -- Index of subjects