Download The Prehistory of Language

The Prehistory of
Language
/ Ed. Botha R., Knight Ch.
Oxford University Press, 2009. — 352 p.
— (Studies in the Evolution of Language).
'When, why, and how did language
evolve? ' 'Why do only humans have
language? ' This book looks at these and
other questions about the origins and
evolution of language. It does so via a rich
diversity of perspectives, including social,
cultural, archaeological,
palaeoanthropological, musicological,
anatomical, neurobiological, primatological,
and linguistic. Among the subjects it
considers are: how far sociality is a
prerequisite for language; the evolutionary
links between language and music; the
relation between natural selection and
niche construction; the origins of the
lexicon; the role of social play in language
development; the use of signs by great
apes; the evolution of syntax; the evolutionary biology of language; the insights offered
by Chomsky's biolinguistic approach to mind and language; the emergence of recursive
language; the selectional advantages of the human vocal tract; and why women speak
better than men.
The authors, drawn from all over the world, are prominent linguists, psychologists,
cognitive scientists, archaeologists, primatologists, social anthropologists, and
specialists in artificial intelligence. As well as explaining what is understood about the
evolution of language, they look squarely at the formidable obstacles to knowing more the absence of direct evidence, for example; the problems of using indirect evidence;
the lack of a common conception of language; confusion about the operation of natural
selection and other processes of change; the scope for misunderstanding in a multidisciplinary field, and many more. Despite these difficulties, the authors in their stylish
and readable contributions to this book are able to show just how much has been
achieved in this most fruitful and fascinating area of research in the social, natural, and
cognitive sciences.
1 Introduction: rewards and challenges of multi‐perspectival work on the
evolution of language and speech
Rudolf Botha
This introductory chapter begins with a brief description of the two general purposes of
the chapters in this volume on the prehistory of language. First, they are representative
of work of substance currently being done in an area where quality is not consistently
dissociated from quantity. In presenting work by scholars of repute, these chapters give
a good idea of the depth of understanding that can be achieved at present. Second,
collectively, the chapters provide a striking illustration of how such understanding is
achieved: by the adoption of a diversity of perspectives and approaches. Thus, in
attempting to account for facets of the evolution of language and speech, these
chapters represent a variety of perspectives: social, cultural, archeological,
paleoanthropological, musicological, anatomical, neurobiological, primatological, and
linguistic, to mention only some. An overview of the subsequent chapters is presented.
2 Why only humans have language
Robin Dunbar
This chapter has three main objectives. First, it briefly summarizes the reasons why
language might have evolved, and what we are to make of these. It then considers what
this has to tell us about why only the hominin lineage evolved the capacity for language.
Finally, it revisits the author's previous analyses (Aiello and Dunbar 1993) on the timing
of language evolution in the hominin fossil record using new estimates for all the
equations involved, in order to explore the sequence by which language might have
evolved, and the transitional states involved.
3 Is sociality a crucial prerequisite for the emergence of language?*
Luc Steels
This chapter reports theoretical research exploring the hypothesis that language
evolved in a cultural fashion as a complex adaptive system. It does not propose a
theory to explain how sociality may have arisen or how it gets reinforced by an existing
language system. Instead, it examines the extent to which ultrasociality is indeed a
crucial prerequisite. Is it the case that if the sociality assumption is not adopted at the
linguistic level, communication systems do not get off the ground at all? Is sociality not
only a sufficient but also a necessary condition for the emergence and transmission of
complex symbol-based communication? And how strict does sociality have to be? Is it
possible that some form of linguistic cheating can be tolerated? And how can an
existing communication system reinforce sociality once it has emerged? Before delving
into these issues, the chapter first summarizes the main hypothesis for the cultural
evolution of language (section 3.2), gives an example of the language-game
experiments we have been carrying out (section 3.3), and then turns to the sociality
question itself (section 3.4).
4 Holistic communication and the co‐evolution of language and music:
resurrecting an old idea
Steven Mithen
This chapter argues that we should return to ideas about the relationship between
language and music advocated by scholars such as Rousseau, Darwin, and Jespersen.
It further articulates the view that language and music co-evolved — a view that is tied
in with recent arguments to the effect that protolanguage was holistic. It is argued that
the proposal of a music-like protolanguage enables us not only to explain certain
continuities between human speech and primate vocal communication but also to
explain the seeming alacrity with which newborn infants respond to language and music
alike, and the significant overlaps of the respective brain regions recruited for language
and music. In addition, the chapter cites different reasons for assuming that
protolanguage used holistic phrases, not compositional ones. It discusses a number of
reasons why so-called hominin holistic phrase communication would have had a degree
of musicality. In interweaving various strands of evidence, the chapter illustrates the
extent to which work on language evolution has become an interdisciplinary endeavor.
5 Music as a communicative medium
Ian Cross and Ghofur Eliot Woodruff
This chapter explores the idea that language and music may have co-evolved, and
proposes that language and music constitute complementary components of the
‘human communicative toolkit’. Drawing on ethnomusical, cognitive, and neuroscientific
evidence, it is argued that music is a communicative medium with features that are
optimally adapted for the management of situations of social uncertainty. Music
achieves this by presenting the characteristics of an honest signal, while
underspecifying goals in a way that permits individuals to interact even while holding
personal interpretations of goals and meanings that may actually be in conflict. The
chapter adduces a theory of meaning in music, in which the experience of music is
accounted for in specific ways by reference to principles that are said to underlie both
animal communication in general, and human communicative interaction in particular.
Exploring the implications of this theory for the evolution of language, it is argued that as
complementary components of the ‘modern human communicative toolkit’, music and
language are best thought of as having co-evolved from a precursive communicative
system that embodied features of both.
6 Cultural niche construction: evolution's cradle of language*
John Odling‐Smee and Kevin N. Laland
Standard evolutionary theory is highly successful, based as it is on solid mathematical
foundations and a rich empirical tradition, constantly renewed by exchanges of
hypotheses and data among diverse researchers. Yet, despite its successes, it does not
provide a satisfactory basis for understanding human evolution. Primarily, this is
because standard evolutionary theory's assumptions limit what it can explain.
Significantly, it largely neglects the role of niche-construction in evolution. As a result, it
has inadvertently erected conceptual barriers that make it difficult to integrate
evolutionary biology with several neighboring disciplines, including developmental
biology, ecosystem-level ecology, and the human sciences. This chapter describes how
niche construction can usefully be regarded as a process which, combined with
established evolutionary processes, improves understanding of human evolution. By
integrating human niche construction with gene-culture co-evolutionary theory, an
evolutionary framework to explore the evolution of language is developed.
7 Playing with meaning: normative function and structure in play
Sonia Ragir and Sue Savage‐Rumbaugh
This chapter explores the potential of social play to generate shared fields of reference
and simple rules in the co-construction of intentional actions and routines in which
players demonstrate mutual awareness through structured signals, monitoring the
attention of others, and cooperative engagement with an object. Co-constructed actions
negotiate the means to mutually acceptable ends, and rules emerge that redirect the
flow into familiar kinds of games. Repetition, with variation, creates rules that govern
and bind a flexible repertory of basic motor skills, social responses, and communicative
behavior. The response of a player redefines and/or limits another's intent; thus the
shared semantic understandings of objects, actions, and/or gestures that signal, query,
or motivate the next move emerge as a function of this interaction. Co-constructed
intentions are inherently shared, and salient gestures, sounds, and ‘incipient acts’ evoke
the meaning of moves that have been played into existence. Because play actions,
movements, and gestures are often without their ‘real world’ consequences or
instrumental functions, these salient acts can become free to ‘stand for’ or re-present
their meaning in non-play contexts. In social play as in language, participants negotiate
hierarchically ordered moves and exchanges that can be modified and rearranged
through repetitive actions and shared goals into normative, rule-governed behavior.
These dialogic structural and normative functions make social play a proper model for
understanding the emergence of language as a negotiated, self-organizing system
rather than a system of communication limited to modern human societies.
8 The ontogeny and phylogeny of non‐verbal deixis*
David A. Leavens, Timothy P. Racine, and William D. Hopkins
This chapter reviews evidence for deixis in great apes. Some of this evidence suggests
that great apes easily develop deictic repertoires in the complete absence of any explicit
attempt to train them. It is argued that deixis — in the sense of the ability to direct the
attention of another to a specific locus — is a capacity shared by great apes and
humans. Assuming that deixis in great apes cannot ultimately derive from bipedalism or
other adaptations, our hominin ancestors were pre-adapted for joint attention, which
makes deixis a component of the faculty of language in the broad sense of Hauser,
Chomsky, and Fitch (2002).
9 The directed scratch: evidence for a referential gesture in chimpanzees?*
Simone Pika and John C. Mitani
This chapter presents observations that suggest wild chimpanzees use a gesture, the
directed scratch, in a referential fashion. Directed scratches share two crucial
components with homesign systems. They involve some form of reference and may
specify a distinct action, therefore qualifying as characterizing signs. Although homesign
systems go a step beyond, by exhibiting simple grammatical structure and recursion,
directed scratches may constitute the first step toward symbolic gestures. These
findings are consistent with the hypothesis that gestures used by our closest living
relatives might have been the crucial modality within which the evolutionary precursors
of symbolic communication evolved. Additional comparative research investigating the
factors triggering the development of referential gestures will be required to resolve
what is unique to humans and what constitutes ‘fossil’ forms of human language or
language abilities.
10 The origins of the lexicon: how a word‐store evolved*
Maggie Tallerman
The human mental lexicon is the repository of many tens of thousands of distinct
vocabulary items, and of stored information about their word classes and their
selectional and subcategorization requirements. Even in its simplest form — before the
syntactic capacity emerges — the lexicon requires a number of distinctive
characteristics to have evolved, such as the ability to link an abstract symbol to the
concept it represents, the ability to retrieve lexical items from storage quickly, and for
that retrieval to be under voluntary control. This chapter investigates the origins of some
of the basic features of the lexicon, focusing on the prerequisites for the production and
comprehension of a simple protolanguage. It proposes that a word-based lexicon
evolved by building on ancient conceptual categories which are likely shared by many
primates. This lexicon also utilized a pre-existing semantic organization, and built on the
hierarchical structure already in place in primate cognition.
11 Language: symbolization and beyond*
Eric Reuland
This chapter argues that it is ‘too simplistic’ to view language as primarily a symbolic
system used for communication. This view leads to an interpretation of the
archeological record that is ‘too naïve’. Central to this argument is the assumption that
natural language is a computational system by which linguistic form and semantic
interpretation are mapped systematically onto each other. The mapping is based on an
inventory of lexical items and a combinatory system that includes the process known as
‘recursion’ which, roughly, has the capacity to form infinitely long sentences by
embedding phrases within phrases. The introduction of this process altered the nature
of linguistic signs, severing the direct connection between form and interpretation. This
gave rise to desymbolization, which is the ‘most characteristic’ property of language. If
this view is correct, evidence of symbolic activity by itself would not be a proper
diagnostic of the presence of language.
12 Grammaticalization from a biolinguistic perspective*
Elly van Gelderen
Estimates about the origin of modern human language range from 50,000 to 150,000
years ago. These estimates are based on archeological findings, the presence of tools
and beads in e.g. the Blombos cave at 70,000 years ago, and mutations in a gene
connected to speech (FOXP2) at about 120,000 years ago. Genetics and archeology
work well together and suggest a homeland for modern humans in Africa. What can
linguistics contribute to this picture? This chapter shows that a biolinguistic approach
has much to offer. The chapter is organized as follows. Section 12.2 presents a very
general picture of the Minimalist Program, and in particular its biolinguistic focus. This
framework is elaborated on in Section 12.3, especially where the operation Merge is
concerned. Sections 12.4 and 12.5 focus on grammaticalization, discussing how it
follows from economy and how it is relevant to language evolution; Section 12.6
concludes.
13 Recursion, phonological storage capacity, and the evolution of modern speech
Frederick L. Coolidge and Thomas Wynn
Recursion is considered to be the hallmark of modern language. This chapter
addresses fundamental questions about its evolutionary emergence: ‘What is the
relationship of recursion to modern language and thinking?’ and ‘What might be the
mechanism or subspecies of recursion that bestows its advantages to cognition?’ In
addressing these questions, empirical evidence is presented which shows that
recursion requires not only greater working memory capacity but also greater
phonological storage capacity. The chapter proposes that recursion arose as a function
of an increase in phonological storage capacity and/or working memory capacity. These
capacities were enhanced by a genetic neural mutation that occurred sometime
between 150,000 and 30,000 years ago. That change made possible longer recursive
and canonical utterances and a consequent increase in the complexity and information
content of sentences.
14 Why women speak better than men (and its significance for evolution)
Bart de Boer
This chapter investigates the effect of the lowering of the larynx in humans, providing an
articulatory/acoustic perspective on the evolution of speech. It uses Mermelstein's
model of the geometry of the human male vocal tract, a model in which the contours
correspond to the actions of the muscles involved in speech. In the experiment, the area
of the acoustic space that is accessible by a model of the male vocal tract — a space
similar to the maximum vowel space — is compared with the accessible area of the
female vocal tract. Simulation results show the female vocal tract is better than the male
tract for producing distinctive speech sounds. This indicates that there is an evolutionary
advantage to a vocal tract that has a pharyngeal and an oral cavity of equal length, as in
the case of the female tract. It is argued that a different evolutionary explanation for the
lower position of the male larynx needs to be found, the theory of size exaggeration as
proposed by Tecumseh Fitch and his colleagues being a likely candidate.
15 Mosaic neurobiology and anatomical plausibility*
Wendy K. Wilkins
This chapter sets out a strategy for investigating the evolutionary biology of language.
Central here is the following thesis: In order to understand the emergence of linguistic
capacity as an innovation in the hominid line, it is necessary to work backwards from
language-relevant anatomy. The assumption is that each piece of the anatomical
mosaic will have a different evolutionary story, and that each story will be more or less
evident in ancestral species, depending on the availability of biological evidence in the
fossil record. The use of this strategy is illustrated by discussing the evolution of Broca's
area and the parietal-occipital-temporal junction (POT) plus Wernicke's area — areas of
the brain that are ‘necessary, if not sufficient, for language’. It is argued that the
complex comprising Broca's area and the POT was evolutionarily shaped to improve
the neurological control of the hand and thumb, and became available for exaptation
after the divergence of the hominid and pongid lineages. This position gains further
support from recent work on primate neuroanatomy.