In their commentary on our work, Ravignani and Verhoef (2018) raise concerns about two methodological aspects of our experimental paradigm (the signaling game): (1) the use of melodic signals of fixed length and durat...
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In their commentary on our work, Ravignani and Verhoef (2018) raise concerns about two methodological aspects of our experimental paradigm (the signaling game): (1) the use of melodic signals of fixed length and duration, and (2) the fact that signals are endowed with meaning. They argue that music is hardly a semantic system and that our methodological choices may limit the capacity of our paradigm to shed light on the emergence and evolution of a number of putative musical universals. We reply that musical systems are semantic systems and that the aim of our research is not to study musical universals as such, but to compare more closely the kinds of principles that organize meaning and structure in linguistic and musical systems.
This paper describes different types of models for the evolution of communication and language. It uses the distinction between signals, symbols, and words for the analysis of evolutionary models of language. In parti...
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This paper describes different types of models for the evolution of communication and language. It uses the distinction between signals, symbols, and words for the analysis of evolutionary models of language. In particular, it shows how evolutionary computation techniques such as artificial life can be used to study the emergence of syntax and symbols from simple communication signals. Initially, a computational model that evolves repertoires of isolated signals is presented. This study has simulated the emergence of signals for naming foods in a population of foragers, This type of model studies communication systems based on simple signal-object associations. Subsequently, models that study the emergence of grounded symbols are discussed in general, including a detailed description of a work on the evolution of simple syntactic rules, This model focuses on the emergence of symbol-symbol relationships in evolved languages. Finally, computational models of syntax acquisition and evolution are discussed. These different types of computational models provide an operational definition of the signal/symbol/word distinction. The simulation and analysis of these types of models will help to understand the role of symbols and symbol acquisition in the origin of language.
作者：
Code, ChrisUniv Exeter
Dept Psychol Washington Singer Labs Exeter EX4 4QG Devon England
This paper briefly explores the relevance of patterns of related symptoms of nonfluent aphasia arising from left inferior frontal brain damage for the evolution of speech, language and gesture. I discuss aphasic lexic...
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This paper briefly explores the relevance of patterns of related symptoms of nonfluent aphasia arising from left inferior frontal brain damage for the evolution of speech, language and gesture. I discuss aphasic lexical speech automatisms (LSAs) and their resolution with recovery into agrammatism with apraxia of speech and draw parallels between this recovery and the early evolution of language to protospeech and protosyntax. I focus attention on the most common forms of LSAs, expletives and the pronoun + modal/aux subtype, and propose that further research into these phenomena can contribute to the debate on the evolution of speech and language. (C) 2009 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Recent work by Stout and colleagues indicates that the neural correlates of language and Early Stone Age toolmaking overlap significantly. The aim of this paper is to add computational detail to their findings. I use ...
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Recent work by Stout and colleagues indicates that the neural correlates of language and Early Stone Age toolmaking overlap significantly. The aim of this paper is to add computational detail to their findings. I use an error minimisation model to outline where the information processing overlap between toolmaking and language lies. I argue that the Early Stone Age signals the emergence of complex structured representations. I then highlight a feature of my account: It allows us to understand the early evolution of syntax in terms of an increase in the number and complexity of models in a cognitive system, rather than the development of new types of processing.
This article introduces a special issue on mechanisms in languageevolution research. It describes processes relevant for the emergence of protolanguage and the transition thereof to modern language. Protolanguage is ...
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This article introduces a special issue on mechanisms in languageevolution research. It describes processes relevant for the emergence of protolanguage and the transition thereof to modern language. Protolanguage is one of the key terms in the field of languageevolution, used to designate a hypothesised intermediate stage in the emergence of language present in extinct hominins: qualitatively different from non-human primate communication in possessing some, but not all, of the features that characterise modern language. Much debate in languageevolution focuses on the exact delineation of these features, as well as the means whereby the transitions occurred: first from non-human primate communication systems to protolanguage, and then from protolanguage to modern language. In what follows, we first propose a comprehensive typology of protolanguage debates, taking into account the postulated structural organisation of protolanguage, its functions, and its communicative modality. This makes it possible to show how a specific focus on mechanisms and processes deemed relevant for the emergence of these features allows us to assess the explanatory scope of the existing theories of protolanguage. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
In this article, I present a substantive proposal about the timing and nature of the final stage of the evolution of full human language, the transition from so-called “protolanguage” to language, and on the origins...
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Recently theorists have developed competing accounts of the origins and nature of protolanguage and the subsequent evolution of language. Debate over these accounts is lively. Participants ask: Is music a direct precu...
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Recently theorists have developed competing accounts of the origins and nature of protolanguage and the subsequent evolution of language. Debate over these accounts is lively. Participants ask: Is music a direct precursor of language? Were the first languages gestural? Or is language continuous with primate vocalizations, such as the alarm calls of vervets? In this article I survey the leading hypotheses and lines of evidence, favouring a largely gestural conception of protolanguage. However, the "sticking point'' of gestural accounts, to use Robbins Burling's phrase, is the need to explain how language shifted to a largely vocal medium. So with a critical eye I consider Michael Corballis's most recent expression of his ideas about this transition (2017's The Truth About language: What It Is And Where It Came From). Corballis's view is an excellent foil to mine and I present it as such. Contrary to Corballis's account, and developing Burling's conjecture that musicality played some role, I argue that the foundations of an evolving musicality (i.e., evolving largely independently of language) provided the means and medium for the shift from gestural to vocal dominance in language. In other words, I suggest that an independently evolving musicality prepared ancient hominins, morphologically and cognitively, for intentional articulate vocal production, enabling the evolution of speech.
This article examines some recent work by Berwick and Chomsky as presented in their book Why Only Us? language and evolution (2015). As I understand them, Berwick and Chomsky's overarching purpose is to explain ho...
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This article examines some recent work by Berwick and Chomsky as presented in their book Why Only Us? language and evolution (2015). As I understand them, Berwick and Chomsky's overarching purpose is to explain how human language could have arisen in so short an evolutionary period. After articulating their strategy, I argue that they fall far short of reaching this goal. A co-evolutionary scenario linking the mechanisms that realize the language system, both with one other and with cognitive mechanisms capable of exploiting linguistic expressions, is surely unavoidable. And yet this is precisely what Berwick and Chomsky in effect rule out.
The goal of this study is to reintegrate the theory of generative grammar into the cognitive sciences. Generative grammar was right to focus on the child's acquisition of language as its central problem, leading t...
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The goal of this study is to reintegrate the theory of generative grammar into the cognitive sciences. Generative grammar was right to focus on the child's acquisition of language as its central problem, leading to the hypothesis of an innate Universal Grammar. However, generative grammar was mistaken in assuming that the syntactic component is the sole course of combinatoriality and that everything else is "interpretive." The proper approach is a parallel architecture, in which phonology, syntax, and semantics are autonomuous generative systems linked by interface components. The parallel architecture leads to an integration within linguistics, and to a far better integration with the rest of cognitive neuroscience. It fits naturally into the larger architecture of the mind/brain and permits a properly mentalistic theory of semantics. It results in a view of linguistic performance in which the rules of grammar are directly involved in processing. Finally, it leads to a natural account of the incremental evolution of the language capacity.
The age-old debate between the proponents of the gesture-first and speech-first positions has returned to occupy a central place in current languageevolution theorizing. The gestural scenarios, suffering from the pro...
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The age-old debate between the proponents of the gesture-first and speech-first positions has returned to occupy a central place in current languageevolution theorizing. The gestural scenarios, suffering from the problem known as "modality transition" (why a gestural system would have changed into a predominantly spoken system), frequently appeal to the gestures of the orofacial area as a platform for this putative transition. Here, we review currently available evidence on the significance of the orofacial area in languageevolution. While our review offers some support for orofacial movements as an evolutionary "bridge" between manual gesture and speech, we see the evidence as far more consistent with a multimodal approach. We also suggest that, more generally, the "gestural versus spoken" formulation is limiting and would be better expressed in terms of the relative input and interplay of the visual and vocal-auditory sensory modalities.
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