Download Controversies and hypotheses

Lecture 9
Controversies and hypotheses
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3.
What is language (again!)?
When language evolved?
How it evolved?
4.
Why it evolved?
5.
Can language evolution be divided in
“stages”? Which?
(Lecture 11)
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2.
(Lecture 9)
(Lecture 10)
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Aristotle
 Man: the rational – and linguistic – animal
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Condillac (1746)
 Action > gesture (through ritualization = non-
normative conventionalization)
 Iconicity in gesture/pantomime > grammar
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Rousseau (1781)
 Gestures and cries > language (through rituals and
songs), “the social contract”
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Monboddo (1774)
 “four original types of communicative self-
explanatory signs: facial expressions, painting,
emotional cries, imitative iconic signs ” (Johansson
2005: 15)
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Herder (1772)
 “our generalist minds and lack of instincts” (ibid: 160)
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Mueller (1866: 354)
 “Language is our Rubicon, and no brute will dare cross
it.”
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Chomsky (1988: 167)
 “In the case of such systems as language and
wings (sic!) it is not easy even to imagine a course
of selection that might have given rise to them.”
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Pinker and Bloom (1990)
 “Natural language and natural selection”
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Fitch (2002: 162)
 “the scientific study of the evolution of language
has apparently come of age”
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1.
2.
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4.
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Innate/genetically determined vs.
Learned/culturally determined
Adaptation vs. Spandrel (+ Exaptation)
Early vs. Late (< 100 000 YA) origin
Gradual vs. Abrupt
Speech-first vs. Gesture-first
“The dimensions should not be interpreted as eitheror dichotomies, but as continua (?), along which
different hypotheses can be located at different
points” (: 163)
 Evidence presented so far (and more) provides
“constraints on hypotheses” (see Chapter 12)
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Not so much concerned with language
evolution per se, but with “what is language”
(mainly):
 Formal or functional system?
 Modular or cognitive (integrated)?
 Biological or cultural?
 “System” or “usage” (know-how, contingencies)

Richest domain of research in terms of
evidence
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“I have no idea what the phrase [i.e. innateness
hypothesis] is supposed to mean and have
correspondingly never advocated any such
hypothesis – beyond the truism that there is
some language-relevant distinction between
granddaughter and her pet kitten”
(Chomsky 1999, Johansson: 178)

The questions are
 what is the “distinction”?
 is it language-specific?
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1.
2.
3.
The universality of linguistic features, e.g.
hierarchical structure, “nouns and verbs”
“The poverty of the stimulus” –
impossibility of language acquisition
without a priori knowledge of “Universal
Grammar”, no “learning algorithm”
(Universal) patterns in L1 acquisition, e.g.
few overgeneralizations, *”I sent Malmö a
package”
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Linguistic universals
 Can be questioned, e.g. recursion in general, and for a
given language such as Piraha (Everett 2005) or Riau
Indonesian (Gil 2001)
 Evans and Levinson (2010): “The myth of linguistic
universals” (BBS, target article)
 Can be explained by other means:
▪ Features of cognition and/or reality (Cognitive Linguistics)
▪ “Adaptive pressures” from communication and learning
(Functional Linguistics)
▪ Descent from a common original language
▪ Necessary “semiotic constraints” (Deacon 2003)
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Is the “stimulus” really “impoverished”, and is
acquisition free of overgeneralizations?
 “Motherese”- possibly universal
 “Negative evidence” available without explicit
correction (cf. the situation in vocabulary learning)
 What children acquire is not a Chomsky-style
generative grammar, but e.g. “the performance
system underlying comprehension and production”
(Seidenberg & MacDonald 1999)
 Children do make all kinds of errors in L1 - but
“recover” quickly.
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The timing of monolingual and bilingual
language acquisition
 No major differences, which would be expected if
UG was innate (t = 0)
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Alternative theories of L1 acquisition (e.g.
Tomasello 2003)
“The poverty of the genes”
 Less than 20 000 genes for entire human body
and brain!
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Brain plasticity, especially on the global level
(and language is not a “module”)
Long periods of group-living (and
interbreeding) does not lead to innate biases
for learning the group’s language
“Ape-language” studies (and maybe even
those with dolphins and grey parrots) have
met with some degree of success
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“Strong claims of a complex and fully
genetically determined innate grammar are
untenable” (Johansson 2005: 188)
This does not imply that language can be
“learned” by “a general learning device” (or a
kitten with a larger brain)
Even if language is essentially a cultural
phenomenon, there is good evidence for
“gene-culture co-evolution” (at least for
speech)
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Spandrel is a term used in evolutionary biology
describing a phenotypic characteristic that is
considered to have developed during evolution as a
side-effect of an adaptation, rather than arising from
natural selection. The term developed from an
analogy of causal relationships between forms
found in architecture and those found in biology.
The term was coined by the Harvard paleontologist
Stephen Jay Gould and population geneticist Richard
Lewontin in their influential paper "The Spandrels of
San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm: A
Critique of the Adaptationist Programme" (1979).
(Wikipedia)
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“Evolutionary theory offers clear criteria for
when a trait should be attributed to natural
selection: complex design for some
function, and the absence of alternative
processes capable of explaining such
complexity. Human language meets this
criterion…” (Pinker and Bloom 1990: 707)
Jackendoff and Pinker (2005) vs.
Hauser, Chomsky and Fitch (2002)
FOXP2 was selected for in the hominine line
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C. Johansson: cultural evolution on a “preexisting biological substrate” may be sufficient
Tomasello (1999): 5 million years, and minimal
(?) genetic differences from the chimpanzees are
not sufficient for a “tool kit” of adaptations
Lightfoot (2000) Some linguistic rules are not
obviously functional, e.g. “subjacency”
*Whose paper that I read on the train is”?
It is not clear that FOXP2 is a “language gene”
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Not either-or: Some features of language can
be adaptations and other spandrels, or both
(starting as spandrels, or as exaptations)
 “The first steps towards language had to be
based on pre-existing features that had
originally evolved form some other purpose” (:
164)
 Some “final steps” may be the result of cultural
evolution: language adapting to us, rather than
vice versa
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“Late hypotheses with biological based
language faculties are severely constrained”
(: 167), i.e. implausible!
 Since there were adaptations for speech in
the Neanderthals, these go back at least to
the common ancestor (800,000 YA).
 “The Upper Paleolithic revolution” of 40,000
YA: “The revolution that wasn’t” (McBreasty
and Brooks 2000)
=> Support for relatively early origins
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Language as a cultural “invention”, and not
determined by the genetic/biological bases
(which must then be explained as exaptations
for non-linguistic functions)
 The early material culture of Homo sapiens
(about 200,000 YA) was not truly “symbolic”
(Davidson 2003)
 The Singing Neanderthals (Mithen 2005):
“their communication system would be holistic,
multi-modal, manipulative and musical:
Hmmm”
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 Possible,
but hardly the “best explanation”
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Geologically sudden ≠ “sudden on human
timescales” (speciation in a single generation)
“… the punctuations of punctuated
equilibrium do not represent de Vresian
saltations, but rather denote the proper
scaling of ordinary speciation into geological
time” (Gould 2002: 19)
“the sudden single-step evolution of
something as complex as language is highly
problematic” (Johansson 2005: 170)
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Sudden: Language is so unlike animal
communication
Gradual: This does not imply that “gulf” was
bridged in a single step
Sudden : Mutation in “master regulatory
genes” (Schwartz 1999)
Gradual: “genuinely new features require
changes in the developmental programs
themselves, not just in the master switches”
(Johansson 2005: 171)
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Sudden: FOXP2 is one such regulatory gene,
and seems to play some role for language
Gradual : But (a) the relevant mutations
seems to have been present in Neanderthals
and (b) they do not concern only language
and (c) FOXP2 “problems” do not affect
language capacity as a whole
Sudden: Universal Grammar is “monolithic”
Gradual : Not even Chomsky holds this
anymore
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“If biological evolution dominated the
process, as it would have to, if language is
innate in any strong sense, then the process
can be expected to be geologically slow. On
the other hand, if language is largely the
product of memetic [rather: cultural]
evolution, then even a gradual process may
appear geologically sudden” (Johansson
2005: 173)
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“I cannot doubt that language owes it origin
to the imitation and modification, aided by
signs and gestures, of the various sounds, the
voices of other animals, and man’s own
distinctive cries” (Darwin 1872: 56)
The homology between animal vocal signals
and language is far from unproblematic.
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1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Paleontology and archeology
Neuroscience
Comparative psychology
Developmental psychology
Gesture studies
Semiotic analysis
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H. Ergaster/Erectus had
tool manufacture,
migration, camps, fire… –
but not the only (?)
fossilizing marker that is
still plausibly connected
with speech: an extended
thoracic canal, for
controlling breathing
(MacLarnon & Hewitt
1999, 2004)
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Control of breathing is
also necessary for
sustained running, or
singing. (Fitch 2009)
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An extension of control for bodily
mimesis to “vocomimesis” and
eventually phonology (Zlatev
2008b)
BA 44, 45 = Broca
BA 22, 39, 40 = Wernicke
Overlap extensively with
the “human mirror neuron
system” (Arbib 2005;
Iacoboni 2005; Decety &
Chaminande 2005): in tasks
of perception-action
matching, imitation,
imagination, pantomime…
BA 4, 6 = perceptionproduction of
“meaningless syllables”
(Wilson et al. 2004)
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“…primate gestures are
individually learned and
flexibly produced
communicative acts…vocal
displays are mostly unlearned,
genetically fixed, emotionally
urgent, involuntary, inflexible…
They are broadcast mostly
indiscriminately…” (Tomasello
2008: 54)

Chimpanzee calls are of two
types: “broadcast” and
“proximal”, and the two lead to
distinct brain-activation
patterns (Taglialatela et al. 2008)
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Cultural comparsion: Main semiotic categories
(whole corpus, components per utterance)
0,7
0,6
0,5
0,4
0,3
0,2
0,1
0
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Developmental primacy of
iconic and pointing gestures
compared to speech (Bates
1979; Tomasello 2008; Zlatev
and Andrén 2009)
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The epigenetic character of
development can be used as an
argument for analogy with
evolution without appealing to
“recapitulation” (Zlatev 2003)
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Speech and gesture
development are closely linked
in time (Goldin-Meadow 2003;
Andrén 2010)
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Analogy between evolution
and development is always
“controversial”
Sw e
Thai
Deictic
Iconic
(Zlatev and Andrén 2009)
Emblematic
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The ubiquity and
universality of gestures –
which even when
conventional are never
completely arbitrary.
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Gestures and speech are
closely related - but “single
system”? (McNeil 2005)
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Even the most
“transparent” gestures are
in part conventional
(Streeck 2009; Andrén 2010)
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“Several different lines of evidence, then, can
be added up to support the hypothesis that
the first step in the evolution towards
linguistic expression was taken with the
employment of visible action, or gesture, for
referential expression. Yet, as has often been
pointed out, this seemingly attractive
hypothesis faces, as MacNeilage (1998: 232)
has put it, an insuperable problem.
Languages are overwhelmingly spoken.”
(Kendon 2008: 12)
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After chimps and dolphins, perhaps other social
species (elephants, buffalo) will be found to have
diverse vocal calls – but these are still signals and not
symbols before being shown to involve a referential
triangle.
 Many reasons to select for speech, after triadic
mimesis (economy, non-visibility, parallel use…), and
furthermore: mimesis is not a full “gestural
language”
 Even today, there is no “absolute switch”, but a
“gesture-speech integrated system”, and language
can emerge in the gestural modality whenever speech
is “blocked” (deafness).

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Learned vs. innate: mostly learned, but with
at least some biological adaptations
Adapation vs. exaptation/spandrel: both
Early vs. late: early adaptations, possibly late
cultural evolution
Gradual vs. sudden: gradual, but apparently
“step-wise”, punctuated
Speech-first vs. gesture-first:
controversial…
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