scholarly journals Human language evolution: a view from theoretical linguistics on how syntax and the lexicon first came into being

Primates ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Haruka Fujita ◽  
Koji Fujita
Keyword(s):  
Language Evolution ◽  
Animal Cognition ◽  
Action Planning ◽  
Theoretical Background ◽  
Human Language ◽  
Motor Action ◽  
Cognitive Capacities ◽  
Gradual Evolution ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Evolutionary Continuity

AbstractHuman language is a multi-componential function comprising several sub-functions each of which may have evolved in other species independently of language. Among them, two sub-functions, or modules, have been claimed to be truly unique to the humans, namely hierarchical syntax (known as “Merge” in linguistics) and the “lexicon.” This kind of species-specificity stands as a hindrance to our natural understanding of human language evolution. Here we challenge this issue and advance our hypotheses on how human syntax and lexicon may have evolved from pre-existing cognitive capacities in our ancestors and other species including but not limited to nonhuman primates. Specifically, we argue that Merge evolved from motor action planning, and that the human lexicon with the distinction between lexical and functional categories evolved from its predecessors found in animal cognition through a process we call “disintegration.” We build our arguments on recent developments in generative grammar but crucially depart from some of its core ideas by borrowing insights from other relevant disciplines. Most importantly, we maintain that every sub-function of human language keeps evolutionary continuity with other species’ cognitive capacities and reject a saltational emergence of language in favor of its gradual evolution. By doing so, we aim to offer a firm theoretical background on which a promising scenario of language evolution can be constructed.

scholarly journals Animal cognition and the evolution of human language: why we cannot focus solely on communication

2019 ◽  
Vol 375 (1789) ◽  
pp. 20190046 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. Tecumseh Fitch
Keyword(s):  
Communication Systems ◽  
Animal Communication ◽  
Language Evolution ◽  
Animal Cognition ◽  
Small Subset ◽  
Human Language ◽  
Human Communication ◽  
Theme Issue ◽  
Royal Road ◽  
Communicative Signals

Studies of animal communication are often assumed to provide the ‘royal road’ to understanding the evolution of human language. After all, language is the pre-eminent system of human communication: doesn't it make sense to search for its precursors in animal communication systems? From this viewpoint, if some characteristic feature of human language is lacking in systems of animal communication, it represents a crucial gap in evolution, and evidence for an evolutionary discontinuity. Here I argue that we should reverse this logic: because a defining feature of human language is its ability to flexibly represent and recombine concepts, precursors for many important components of language should be sought in animal cognition rather than animal communication. Animal communication systems typically only permit expression of a small subset of the concepts that can be represented and manipulated by that species. Thus, if a particular concept is not expressed in a species' communication system this is not evidence that it lacks that concept. I conclude that if we focus exclusively on communicative signals, we sell the comparative analysis of language evolution short. Therefore, animal cognition provides a crucial (and often neglected) source of evidence regarding the biology and evolution of human language. This article is part of the theme issue ‘What can animal communication teach us about human language?’

Clash of signs: Putting bilingualism back into language evolution

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Samuel
Keyword(s):  
Language Evolution ◽  
Modern Human ◽  
Alarm Calls ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Human Language ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Typically Developing Children ◽  
Modern Humans ◽  
The Real ◽  
Multiple Languages

Research and thinking into the cognitive aspects of language evolution has usually attempted to account for how the capacity for learning even one modern human language developed. Bilingualism has perhaps been thought of as something to think about only once the ‘real’ puzzle of monolingualism is solved, but this would assume in turn (and without evidence) that bilingualism evolved after monolingualism. All typically-developing children (and adults) are capable of learning multiple languages, and the majority of modern humans are at least bilingual. In this paper I ask whether by skipping bilingualism out of language evolution we have missed a trick. I propose that exposure to synonymous signs, such as food and alarm calls, are a necessary precondition for the abstracting away of sound from referent. In support of this possibility is evidence that modern day bilingual children are better at breaking this ‘word magic’ spell. More generally, language evolution should be viewed through the lens of bilingualism, as this is the end state we are attempting to explain.

Extended Emulation Theory

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luca Rade
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Action Planning ◽  
Weak Form ◽  
External Input ◽  
Motor Action ◽  
Abstract Thought ◽  
Thought Patterns ◽  
Stored Information ◽  
Short Term Prediction ◽  
The Mind

Emulators are internal models, first evolved for prediction in perception to shorten the feedback on motor action. However, the selective pressure on perception is to improve the fitness of decision-making, driving the evolution of emulators towards context-dependent payoff representation and integration of action planning, not enhanced prediction as is generally assumed. The result is integrated perceptual, memory, representational, and imaginative capacities processing external input and stored internal input for decision-making, while simultaneously updating stored information. Perception, recall, imagination, theory of mind, and dreaming are the same process with different inputs. Learning proceeds via scaffolding on existing conceptual infrastructure, a weak form of embodied cognition. Discrete concepts are emergent from continuous dynamics and are in a perceptual, not representational, format. Language is also in perceptual format and enables precise abstract thought. In sum, what was initially a primitive system for short-term prediction in perception has evolved to perform abstract thought, store and retrieve memory, understand others, hold embedded action plans, build stable narratives, simulate scenarios, and integrate context dependence into perception. Crucially, emulators co-evolved with the emergence of societies, producing a mind-society system in which emulators are dysfunctional unless integrated into a society, which enables their complexity. The Target Emulator System, evolved initially for honest signaling, produces the emergent dynamics of the mind-society system and spreads variation-testing of behavior and thought patterns across a population. The human brain is the most dysfunctional in isolation, but the most effective given its context.

scholarly journals The integration hypothesis of human language evolution and the nature of contemporary languages

2014 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shigeru Miyagawa ◽  
Shiro Ojima ◽  
Robert C. Berwick ◽  
Kazuo Okanoya
Keyword(s):  
Language Evolution ◽  
Human Language

Exploring the hyphen in ideo-motor action

2001 ◽  
Vol 24 (5) ◽  
pp. 891-892 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wilfried Kunde
Keyword(s):  
Action Planning ◽  
Action Control ◽  
Motor Action ◽  
Movement Effect ◽  
Feature Based

This commentary focuses on Hommel et al.'s inferences on action planning. It discusses the relevance of anticipated extrinsic movement effects for action control, the problems of a feature-based representation of actions, and the necessity of the acquisition of conditional movement-effect associations.

The feasibility of segmentation of protolanguage

2011 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-35
Author(s):  
István Zachar
Keyword(s):  
Analytical Model ◽  
Analytical Method ◽  
Language Evolution ◽  
The Other ◽  
Cognitive Capacities ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Fractionation Analysis ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Linguistic Process

An important question in language evolution is whether segmentation as a linguistic process is able to yield compositionality. Segmentation is hypothesized to be a process to bridge the gap between holistic and compositional lexicons. However, to date no thorough analytical method has been provided to test the feasibility of segmentation. In this paper, an analytical model is presented that can predict the probability of encountering various kinds of overlaps by observing utterance pairs, and the probability of finding confirmation in the language for newly extracted segments. Language users start by using a previously evolved holistic lexicon to communicate about simple environments. They segment these holistic utterances to smaller pieces, which can be used as elements of a compositional lexicon. The model reveals that the feasibility of segmentation depends on the definition of counterexamples, i.e. those associations (pairs), which either cause ambiguous extraction of segments, or do not allow segmentation at all. On one hand if inexact overlaps are considered to be contradictory (i.e. causing confusion) to a perfect exact overlap, then the probability is so minuscule that it renders the role of segmentation marginal during language evolution. On the other hand, if such inexact counterexamples are able to be segmented unambiguously due to extra cognitive capacities, segmentation may have a much higher feasibility. Keywords: segmentation; fractionation; analysis; holistic; protolanguage; compositionality

What happened to Homo habilis? (Language and mirror neurons)

1998 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 527-528 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giacomo Rizzolatti
Keyword(s):  
Mirror Neurons ◽  
Language Evolution ◽  
Action Observation ◽  
Premotor Cortex ◽  
Physiological Data ◽  
Action Execution ◽  
Homo Habilis ◽  
Target Article ◽  
Linguistic Functions ◽  
Evolutionary Continuity

The evolutionary continuity between the prespeech functions of premotor cortex and its new linguistic functions, the main thesis of MacNeilage's target article, is confirmed by the recent discovery of “mirror” neurons in monkeys and a corresponding action-observation/action-execution matching system in humans. Physiological data (and other considerations) appear to indicate, however, that brachiomanual gestures played a greater role in language evolution than MacNeilage would like to admit.

scholarly journals Evolutionary convergence and biologically embodied cognition

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 20160123 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fred A. Keijzer
Keyword(s):  
Nervous System ◽  
Embodied Cognition ◽  
Animal Cognition ◽  
Philosophy Of Biology ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Evolutionary Patterns ◽  
Mental Context ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Nervous System Evolution ◽  
Evolutionary Convergence

The study of evolutionary patterns of cognitive convergence would be greatly helped by a clear demarcation of cognition. Cognition is often used as an equivalent of mind, making it difficult to pin down empirically or to apply it confidently beyond the human condition. Recent developments in embodied cognition and philosophy of biology now suggest an interpretation that dissociates cognition from this mental context. Instead, it anchors cognition in a broad range of biological cases of intelligence, provisionally marked by a basic cognitive toolkit. This conception of cognition as an empirically based phenomenon provides a suitable and greatly expanded domain for studies of evolutionary convergence. This paper first introduces this wide, biologically embodied interpretation of cognition. Second, it discusses examples drawn from studies on bacteria, plants and fungi that all provide cases fulfilling the criteria for this wide interpretation. Third, the field of early nervous system evolution is used to illustrate how biologically embodied cognition raises new fundamental questions for research on animal cognition. Finally, an outline is given of the implications for the evolutionary convergence of cognition.

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