Language Evolution

To investigate the evolution of syntax, we need to ascertain the evolutionary rôle of syntax and, before that, the very nature of syntax. Here, we will assume that syntax is computing. And then, since we are computationally Turing complete, we meet an evolutionary anomaly, the anomaly of syntax: we are syntactically too competent for syntax. Assuming that problem solving is computing, and realizing that the evolutionary advantage of Turing completeness is full problem solving and not syntactic proficiency, we explain the anomaly of syntax by postulating that syntax and problem solving co-evolved in humans towards Turing completeness. Examining the requirements that full problem solving impose on language, we find firstly that semantics is not sufficient and that syntax is necessary to represent problems. Our final conclusion is that full problem solving requires a functional semantics on an infinite tree-structured syntax. Besides these results, the introduction of Turing completeness and problem solving to explain the evolution of syntax should help us to fit the evolution of language within the evolution of cognition, giving us some new clues to understand the elusive relation between language and thinking.

This is a review of the book "Why Only Us" by Berwick & Chomsky done from the point of view of computing. The main conclusions are: that the book uses the word 'recursion' with a meaning that does not correspond to the meaning used in mathematics, causing confusion, and that the theory presented in the book, that syntax can be reduced to Merge, does not translate sensibly to computing, because Merge by itself cannot even parse, and therefore it is not enough to explain the evolution of Merge to explain the evolution of language, as the book proposes.

A complete hierarchy of languages is introduced to defend the thesis that 'human language is a Turing complete language'. This complete hierarchy discriminates languages on computability, meaning mixability, generativity, decidability, and expressiveness. We show that our thesis is true and, using the complete hierarchy, that our thesis is more specific and then more significant than other truths about human language. The complete hierarchy explains the evolution of language on the assumption that it was driven by expressiveness, and consequently it explains that our language is complete because complete languages are the most expressive languages.

The notion of cultural aspects of language variation and change is a growing fi eld. However, collective works on the current stance within this domain are still scarce. The Mouton Atlas of Languages and Cultures embraces a substantial part of the Eurasian continent and equips the reader to better observe, reconstruct and understand the impact of culture and cultural changes on language diversity and linguistic developments. Along the way, a fascinating range of interdis-ciplinary issues, from database encoding conventions to etymologies and cultural anthropology, are discussed. Based on an extensive database assembled by Gerd Carling and her team in Lund, Sweden, the atlas presents typological and lexical data of more than 200 ancient and modern languages, any encoded for the very fi rst time. Alongside classic maps, the atlas features new visualizations, such as polygons and network diagrams, which smartly illustrate complex linguistic patterns of borro-wability, co-lexifi cation and semantic evolution and thereby provide entirely new perspectives.  Analyzing language spread and diversity in relation to environment, subsistence, and cultural contact  Smart visualizations of complex language patterns  Containing data from both ancient and modern languages

In the history of earth, the physical was everything. It dominated as a single 1) physical context starting roughly 4.5 billion years ago. With the development of life, the 2) biotic context increased in expression and impacts starting about 3.7 billion years ago. Around 600 million years ago multicellular life developed. The earth settled into a dual physical/biotic dance. The addition of the emerging hominid biota about 5 million years ago then modern human around 200,000 years ago and the emergent 3) cultural context changed everything. It took time, it took population growth to reach a communication point where exchange of information created a bloom in innovation and technology adaptations. Now, the cultural environment dominates the biotic and physical as sources of burgeoning maintenance and growth of a single human animal. Early hominids were minimal speech/culture animals. Their evolution was like any other animal in their environment. As brain size increased as well as communication intensity increased, hominids approached then crossed a theoretical point where cultural decisions weighed significantly in evolutionary change. At this juncture, hominids self-separated themselves from the rest of the animals, entering the realm of cultural evolution to an increasing degree as to become a thing (an emerging quality distinct from its context). When hominids began making depictions of the world around them, there must have been essentially no separation between the depiction and the thing depicted. A drawing of a bison was the bison. Depiction was natural, the thing depicted was the thing itself. Hominids were natural biota. If a dart-thrower was carved as an ibex, was it an artifact given the spirit of the ibex or was it simply "ibex"? If an animal was killed with the dart thrown by this depicted tool, was the kill attributed to "ibex", or attributed to the spirit or power of the ibex now inherent in the modified dart-thrower? Did ibex kill or did the user kill? Was there separation? "I will take the ibex out to hunt" or "I will use the power of the ibex with me on my hunt"? Interaction between hominids and their 1) physical and 2) biotic environments slowly became modified by the increasing impact of their 3) cultural environment. The physical changing slowly and seasonally, the biotic changing faster and more variable, and the cultural changing quickly and soon modifying both the physical and biotic sub-environmental contexts. The early hominids existed in the physical and biotic realms, like any other animal. Slowly emerging out of the increasing complexity of speech-language, the interactions between members of the groups became a cultural milieu. The increasing levels of communication resulting in the growth of technologies of resource exploitation. At the emergent scale, the physical and biotic contexts were dominant over the cultural. The physical and biotic context was "alive-real". The physical context was a living thing, with all the attributes of life. The biota had all the attributes of any fellow hominid. The physical and biotic context had all the attributed skills and values of the hominid. This is likely, based on common themes and mythologies found through anthropological research.

Recently, considerable interest for language evolution has arisen. Many researchers believe that language evolved via exaptation of domain-general cognitive systems such as long-term memory, visuospatial processing and executive functioning. Therefore, many studies on language evolution have focused on determining when specific cognitive functions, which might have supported language, developed. One approach in this area has been to establish the neurocognitive and neural correlates of specific behaviours during the Palaeolithic period (from ~3.3 mya to ~10 kya). The focus has been on stone-toolmaking-related behaviours because of the higher preservation of stone in the archaeological record compared to other materials. The earliest stone industry is the pre-Homo Lomekwian. It has been hypothesized based on experimental replication of the knapping process that the Lomekwian findings are suggestive of lesser functional lateralization of the motoric and prefrontal cortex compared to modern humans. The next stone industry – the Oldowan –, typically associated with Homo habilis, has been linked to more complex subsistence strategies and social behaviours. Neuroimaging studies have shown that Oldowan toolmaking predominantly involves frontoparietal sensorimotor areas and the cerebellum, which is why this industry has been described as cognitively relatively „ape-like“. The following industry, the Acheulean, taxonomically linked to Homo erectus and chronologically coinciding with significant brain enlargements in our genus, is believed to be more demanding in hierarchical and sequential action processing compared to earlier technologies. Additionally, neuroimaging studies have shown higher activation of the right Broca's area and temporal cortici during Acheulean compared to Oldowan toolmaking. Recently, a study by our lab comparing sidescraper manufacture, associated with Homo heidelbergensis and Neanderthals, and Oldowan toolmaking has found higher involvement of visuospatial and executive functions in the former task. While it is hard to generalize based on this data, we will suggest some implications for the existence of language in early Homo.

U ovom ćemo radu predstaviti studentski istraživački projekt „Eksperimentalni pristup koevoluciji jezika i kamenog oruđa“ u kojem smo istraživali vezu između izrade dvaju tipova paleolitičkog kamenog oruđa te evolucije uma i specifično jezika. O evoluciji uma i jezika dugo se u velikom dijelu tog područja raspravljalo samo u okvirima antropologije i arheologije. Međutim, u novije doba u te su se rasprave uključile i lingvistika, psihologija i neuroznanost. Jedna od istaknutih teorija jest tzv. tehnološka hipoteza koja pretpostavlja koevolucijsku vezu između paleolitičkog kamenog oruđa i jezika. S jedne strane, tehnološku hipotezu podupiru studije koje pokazuju uključenost određenih moždanih područja poput Brocinog područja i ventralnog premotoričkog korteksa tijekom izrade određenih tipova kamenog oruđa, pri čemu se ta ista područja na ovaj ili onaj način povezuju i s jezičnim funkcijama u mozgu. S druge strane, studije koje istražuju učinke pojedinih tipova prenošenja znanja na usvajanje izrade kamenog oruđa pokazuju da jezične upute ne facilitiraju usvajanje izrade. U našem projektu 13 je ispitanika bez prethodnog znanja izrade kamenog oruđa učilo izrađivati oldovanski sjekač i, uvjetno rečeno, musterijensko strugalo. Ispitanici su bili podijeljeni u verbalnu, u kojoj su od demonstratora dobili jezične upute, i neverbalnu skupinu, u kojoj je demonstrator podučavao s pomoću gesti. Ispitanici su riješili i bateriju neuropsiholoških testova u programu PEBL kojima su se testirali vizualna pažnja, vizuospacijalna obrada, planiranje, kognitivna fleksibilnost i jezična obrada. Rezultati preliminarno pokazuju da izrada strugala koje se načelno veže uz neandertalce zahtijeva veći vizuospacijalni i izvršni kapacitet u usporedbi s izradom sjekača, koje se uglavnom veže uz Homo habilisa i eventualno australopitecine. Rezultati ne pokazuju jasno postoje li razlike u usvajanju između verbalne i neverbalne skupine u obama zadacima. Preliminarni rezultati slažu se s dosadašnjim istraživanjima koja sugeriraju da su se pojavom ašelejena i/ili specifično Homo erectusa pojavile i kognitivne sposobnosti bliske onima današnjeg Homo sapiensa, a koje potencijalno uključuju i komunikacijske sposobnosti koje podsjećaju na jezik. Projekt je financiran iz sredstava Odsjeka za arheologiju i Odsjeka za lingvistiku Filozofskog fakulteta Sveučilišta u Zagrebu. Voditelj projekta bio je Petar Gabrić. Suradnici na projektu bili su Marko Banda, prof. dr. sc. Ivor Karavanić i Luka Bulian.

Although Homo sapiens were anatomically able to talk 150,000 years ago (150 kya), it appears that they did not until about 40 kya when the Upper Paleolithic cultural and symbolic explosion occurred. To date, there has been no satisfactory explanation. This paper attempts to provide an answer as to when a fully developed G1 language came into being and the reasons for the emergence of such a language plus the reasons why the later Paleolithic explosion took so long to develop. Specifically, the abilities of the Homo sapiens' prefrontal cortex, the planning involved with various tool-making and other processes, the development of episodic memory, the growing use of spoken words, and a new understanding of time -- all came together about 100 kya. It then took another 60 ky before this new sensibility led to an established belief system which resulted in the Upper Paleolithic cultural explosion.

Several formal models of signalling conventions have been proposed to explain how and under what circumstances compositional signalling might evolve. I suggest that these models fail to give a plausible account of the evolution of compositionality because (1) they apparently take linguistic compositionality as their target phenomenon, and (2) they are insensitive to role asymmetries inherent to the signalling game. I further suggest that, rather than asking how signals might come to be compositional, we must clarify what it would mean for signals to be compositional to begin with.

In the last few years it has become evident that the European Upper Paleolithic "replacement" model was initially based on false evidence and that most of its propositions can be or have been refuted. This paper reviews the key evidence of the model, the skeletal, archaeological and genetic factors inherent in it, and how they have failed to support the model. It is shown that the change from robust to gracile Homo sapiens occurs gradually in all four continents then occupied by humans and that there are many intermediate fossils. In Europe, it is shown; there are currently no known specimens of reasonably "modern" remains until the Gravettian, while all Early Upper Paleolithic traditions, including the Aurignacian, seem to be attributable to robusts, such as Neanderthaloid people. The rapid gracilization of all humans of the Final Pleistocene is attributed here to suspension of natural evolutionary developments by culturally mediated breeding patterns favouring skeletal gracility.

The Origins of Self explores the role that selfhood plays in defining human society, and each human individual in that society. It considers the genetic and cultural origins of self, the role that self plays in socialisation and language, and the types of self we generate in our individual journeys to and through adulthood.
Edwardes argues that other awareness is a relatively early evolutionary development, present throughout the primate clade and perhaps beyond, but self-awareness is a product of the sharing of social models, something only humans appear to do. The self of which we are aware is not something innate within us, it is a model of our self produced as a response to the models of us offered to us by other people. Edwardes proposes that human construction of selfhood involves seven different types of self. All but one of them are internally generated models, and the only non-model, the actual self, is completely hidden from conscious awareness. We rely on others to tell us about our self, and even to let us know we are a self.
Developed in relation to a range of subject areas – linguistics, anthropology, genomics and cognition, as well as socio-cultural theory – The Origins of Self is of particular interest to students and researchers studying the origins of language, human origins in general, and the cognitive differences between human and other animal psychologies.

Music and language are universal human abilities with many apparent similarities relating to their acoustics, structure, and frequent use in social situations. We might therefore expect them to be understood and processed similarly, and indeed an emerging body of research suggests that this is the case. But the focus has historically been on the individual, looking at the passive listener or the isolated speaker or performer, even though social interaction is the primary site of use for both domains. Nonetheless, an important goal of emerging research is to compare music and language in terms of acoustics and structure, social interaction, and functional origins to develop parallel accounts across the two domains. Indeed, a central aim of both of evolutionary musicology and language evolution research is to understand the adaptive significance or functional origin of human music and language. An influential proposal to emerge in recent years has been referred to as the social bonding hypothesis. Here, within a comparative approach to animal communication systems, I review empirical studies in support of the social bonding hypothesis in humans, non-human primates, songbirds, and various other mammals. In support of this hypothesis, I review six research fields: (i) the functional origins of music; (ii) the functional origins of language; (iii) mechanisms of social synchrony for human social bonding; (iv) language and social bonding in humans; (v) music and social bonding in humans; and (vi) pitch, tone and emotional expression in human speech and music. I conclude that the comparative study of complex vocalizations and behaviors in various extant species can provide important insights into the adaptive function(s) of these traits in these species, as well as offer evidence-based speculations for the existence of "musilanguage" in our primate ancestors, and thus inform our understanding of the biology and evolution of human music and language.

The presence of clicks in Southern African languages has inspired theories of human language history since first encountered by European travelers. Catford (1997) points out their early notions about clicks were often rooted in historical bias rather than in empirical evidence. The following discussion highlights potentially problematic terms that continue to be used in the literature on clicks and language evolution, in particular, that clicks are exotic, not human or rare.

The article aims at developing some aspects of the fruitful reflections contained in Carmine Di Martino’s book Viventi umani e non umani. Tecnica, linguaggio e memoria (Milano 2017), especially those concerning the nature and the origin of the human technique and language. The specific purpose of the present paper is to discuss some possible theoretical developments of those topics in connection with the latest discoveries in human evolution field and with the most recent lines of research emerging in the epistemological debates concerning the structure of the standard evolutionary theory. In particular, the article examines the proposal to rethink the human evolution in the light of a multilevel and extended evolutionary synthesis, and of a “tree thinking” and “mosaic” approach. A concluding section addresses a recurring crucial issue in Di Martino’s book, concerning the relationship between philosophy and scientific theories. The possible role of the philosophical practice is analyzed in order to avoid the superstitious attitude that consists of thinking about scientific truths as something absolutely objective and independent from the practical activities, techniques, and theoretical constructions, which constantly put them into being.

In paleoanthropological literature, the use of the term “mosaic” (mosaic evolution, mosaic trait, mosaic species, and so on) is becoming more and more frequent. In order to promote a clarification of the use of the concept in literature, we propose here a classification in three different meanings of the notion of mosaic in human evolution: 1) morphological (inter-specific and intra-specific) instability in a certain phase of a branched phylogeny; 2) multiple trajectories and versions of the same adaptive trait in a branched phylogeny; 3) the trait itself as a complex mosaic of sub-traits with different phylogenetic stories (as is the case in language). We argue that the relevance of such mosaic patterns needs a macro-evolutionary interpretation, which takes into consideration the interaction between general selective pressures (promoting different versions of the same adaptation) and a cladogenetic approach in which speciation played a crucial role, due to ecological instability, habitat fragmentation, and geographical dispersals in human evolution.

Language evolution has long been researched. I will review a number of broad, emerging research directions which arguably have the potential to contribute to our understanding of language evolution. Emerging topics in genomics and neurolinguistics are explored, and human-specific levels of braincase globularity-and the broader process of self-domestication within which globularity seems capable of being encapsulated-will be argued to be the central pillars of any satisfactory and interdisciplinary model of language evolution.