The limbic language/language axis theory of speech

2000 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 439-440
Author(s):  
R. Joseph
Keyword(s):  
Language Evolution ◽  
Evolution Of Language ◽  
Evolution And Development ◽  
Target Article

In a recent BBS target article, MacNeilage (1998) presents what he claims to be the only theory that can account for the evolution of language. However, major portions of his target article basically repeat and in many respects are identical to the theories of language evolution and development first proposed and detailed by the present commentator.

scholarly journals Brains, genes, and language evolution: A new synthesis

2008 ◽  
Vol 31 (5) ◽  
pp. 537-558 ◽  
Author(s):  
Morten H. Christiansen ◽  
Nick Chater
Keyword(s):  
Language Learners ◽  
Cultural Transmission ◽  
Language Evolution ◽  
Universal Grammar ◽  
Evolution Of Language ◽  
New Synthesis ◽  
Target Article ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Close Fit

AbstractOur target article argued that a genetically specified Universal Grammar (UG), capturing arbitrary properties of languages, is not tenable on evolutionary grounds, and that the close fit between language and language learners arises because language is shaped by the brain, rather than the reverse. Few commentaries defend a genetically specified UG. Some commentators argue that we underestimate the importance of processes of cultural transmission; some propose additional cognitive and brain mechanisms that may constrain language and perhaps differentiate humans from nonhuman primates; and others argue that we overstate or understate the case against co-evolution of language genes. In engaging with these issues, we suggest that a new synthesis concerning the relationship between brains, genes, and language may be emerging.

Dynamic systems and the evolution of language

2006 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 286-287
Author(s):  
Lakshmi J. Gogate
Keyword(s):  
Systems Theory ◽  
Evolutionary Theory ◽  
Dynamic Systems ◽  
Language Evolution ◽  
Ontogenetic Development ◽  
Dynamic Systems Theory ◽  
Evolution Of Language ◽  
Target Article

Locke & Bogin (L&B) suggest that theoretical principles of ontogenetic development apply to language evolution. If this is the case, then evolutionary theory should utilize epigenetic theories of development to theorize, model, and elucidate the evolution of language wherever possible. In this commentary, I evoke principles of dynamic systems theory to evaluate the evolutionary phenomena presented in the target article.

Language Evolution and Development

1993 ◽  
Vol 38 (5) ◽  
pp. 520-522
Author(s):  
Richard P. Meier
Keyword(s):  
Language Evolution ◽  
Evolution And Development

Effects of Compression on Language Evolution

2000 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tracy K. Teal ◽  
Charles E. Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Complex Systems ◽  
Language Evolution ◽  
Minimum Description Length ◽  
Evolution Of Language ◽  
Problem Space ◽  
Natural Languages ◽  
Look Up Table ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract For many adaptive complex systems information about the environment is not simply recorded in a look-up table, but is rather encoded in a theory, schema, or model, which compresses information. The grammar of a language can be viewed as such a schema or theory. In a prior study [Teal et al., 1999] we proposed several conjectures about the learning and evolution of language that should follow from these observations: (C1) compression aids in generalization; (C2) compression occurs more easily in a “smooth”, as opposed to a “rugged”, problem space; and (C3) constraints from compression make it likely that natural languages evolve towards smooth string spaces. This previous work found general, if not complete support for these three conjectures. Here we build on that study to clarify the relationship between Minimum Description Length (MDL) and error in our model and examine evolution of certain languages in more detail. Our results suggest a fourth conjecture: that all else being equal, (C4) more complex languages change more rapidly during evolution.

scholarly journals The Social Evolution of Language, and the Language of Social Evolution

2007 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 147470490700500 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas C. Scott-Phillips
Keyword(s):  
Social Evolution ◽  
Language Evolution ◽  
Reciprocal Altruism ◽  
Honest Signaling ◽  
Evolution Theory ◽  
Evolution Of Language ◽  
The Social ◽  
Human Capacity ◽  
Correct Application

Recent years have witnessed an increased interest in the evolution of the human capacity for language. Such a project is necessarily interdisciplinary. However, that interdisciplinarity brings with it a risk: terms with a technical meaning in their own field are used wrongly or too loosely by those from other backgrounds. Unfortunately, this risk has been realized in the case of language evolution, where many of the terms of social evolution theory (reciprocal altruism, honest signaling, etc.) are incorrectly used in a way that suggests that certain key fundamentals have been misunderstood. In particular the distinction between proximate and ultimate explanations is often lost, with the result that several claims made by those interested in language evolution are epistemically incoherent. However, the correct application of social evolution theory provides simple, clear explanations of why language most likely evolved and how the signals used in language — words — remain cheap yet arbitrary.

Pantomime and imitation in great apes

2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 200-215 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne E. Russon
Keyword(s):  
Data Mining ◽  
Language Evolution ◽  
Great Apes ◽  
Great Ape ◽  
Evolution Of Language ◽  
Distinct Process ◽  
Action Imitation ◽  
Primitive Forms ◽  
Communicative Abilities

Abstract This paper assesses great apes’ abilities for pantomime and action imitation, two communicative abilities proposed as key contributors to language evolution. Modern great apes, the only surviving nonhuman hominids, are important living models of the communicative platform upon which language evolved. This assessment is based on 62 great ape pantomimes identified via data mining plus published reports of great ape action imitation. Most pantomimes were simple, imperative, and scaffolded by partners’ relationship and scripts; some resemble declaratives, some were sequences of several inter-related elements. Imitation research consistently shows great apes perform action imitation at low fidelity, but also that action imitation may not represent a distinct process or function. Discussion focuses on how findings may advance reconstruction of the evolution of language, including what great apes may contribute to understanding ‘primitive’ forms of pantomime and imitation and how to improve their study.

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.

Pro and con: Internal speech and the evolution of complex language

2016 ◽  
Vol 39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina Behme
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Evolution ◽  
Language Complexity ◽  
Integrated Framework ◽  
Target Article ◽  
Internal Speech ◽  
Over Time

AbstractThe target article by Christiansen & Chater (C&C) offers an integrated framework for the study of language acquisition and, possibly, a novel role for internal speech in language acquisition. However, the “Now-or-Never bottleneck” raises a paradox for language evolution. It seems to imply that language complexity has been either reduced over time or has remained the same. How, then, could languages as complex as ours have evolved in prelinguistic ancestors? Linguistic Platonism could offer a solution to this paradox.

Linguists play catchup with evolution

2001 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 581-591 ◽  
Author(s):  
DEREK BICKERTON
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Computational Linguistics ◽  
Language Evolution ◽  
Evolution Of Language ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
Oxford University ◽  
Language And Communication ◽  
Georgetown University ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Oxford University Press

Donald Loritz, How the brain evolved language. New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. Pp. 227.Lyle Jenkins, Biolinguistics : exploring the biology of language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Pp. xiii+264.In the course of reviewing recent books on the evolution of language and communication (Dunbar 1996, Hauser 1996, Deacon 1997) I have had occasion to note that relatively few writers on these topics know much about linguistics, and to wish that more of them did. I should have remembered the old adage that one shouldn't wish for things - one might get them.For more than a century, linguists honored the Linguistic Society of Paris's ban on all discussion of language evolution; other disciplines went ahead with it regardless. Now that the centrality of language evolution to any study of our species is becoming apparent, linguists are desperately trying to play catchup, and the two volumes reviewed here both appeared in the last couple of years. Both authors are linguists, albeit hyphenated ones. Donald Loritz teaches computational linguistics at Georgetown University; his doctorate was in psycholinguistics. Lyle Jenkins works in the Biolinguistics Institute in Cambridge, MA; however, his doctorate was in unhyphenated linguistics. It would be difficult to find two authors whose ideas were more diametrically opposed.

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