How Languages evolved

Rikhiya Ghosh Graduate Student, RAIR

Computer Science

What is Communication?

What is Communication?

Primate Communication

Vocalization in Primates• Same vocal repertoire within a species

• Connection between vocal call and its eliciting situation fixed

• No change or little change in vocalizations with human contact, isolation or raising by other nonhuman primate species

• Flexibility only in presence or absence of company

• Indiscriminate broadcasting

Gestures in Primates• Varied number of gestures

• Non-standardisation of gestures

• Attention of recipient

• Sequence of gestures

• Learn novel gestures

Types of primate gestures24 Chapter 2

Table 2.1Some intentional gestural signals used by chimpanzees in their spontaneous social interactions in social groups (C communicator; R recipient). See Call and Tomasello 2007.

Gestural Action Goal/Function

Intention-Movements

Arm-raise C raises arm toward R, beginning hitting.

Initiate play

Touch-back C touches back of R lightly, beginning climbing on.

Request ride-on-back

Hand-beg C places hand under R’s mouth, beginning taking food.

Request food

Head bob C “bobs and weaves” in bowing position at R, beginning play.

Initiate play

Arm-on C approaches R and places arm on R’s back, beginning dragging.

Initiate tandem walk

Attention-Getters

Ground-slap C slaps the ground (or an object) and looks to R.

Often play

Poke-at C pokes a body part of R. Various

Throw-stuff C throws something at R. Often play

Hand-clap C slaps own wrist or hand, as approaches R.

Often play

Back-offer C insistently puts its own back in the face of R.

Typically grooming

Source: Call and Tomasello, 2007

Pointing

Human gestures

Pantomime

Pointing

• Deictic Gestures • Iconic gestures

Pointing in Infants144 Chapter 4

Point to Request Help - Imperative

DemandAction

Share Emotions

Point to Share Attitudes - Expressive

Point to Offer Help - Informative

Age in Months

0 3 6 9 12

SkillLevel

Und

erst

andi

ng In

tent

ions

Sha

red

Inte

ntio

nalit

y

Offer Help

Figure 4.1Developmental emergence of cooperative communication in pointing.

its own evolutionary basis, with advantages for both communicator and recipient (see chapter 5). And second, despite the developmental readiness of many other com-ponents, young infants do not begin to engage in coop-erative communication by pointing until their skills of shared intentionality emerge at around the fi rst birthday (these skills are thus the “control parameter” constrain-ing age of emergence).

It is important as well, in this context, that in the current account we do not credit 12-month-olds with the full structure of mature cooperative communication. In par-ticular, they seem not to have fully mastered all aspects

Co-operation Model• Shared intentionality

• Communicative context and reference

• Social motivations: Joint goal

• Other communicative motives : Request, Inform, Share

• Mutual Helpfulness and Co-operative Reasoning : Gricean Theory and recursive mindreading

• Cultural group selection

• Eye movement

Language and Thought• Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis : Counting, Languages of

Australian Aborigines

• Cognitive Therapy (Beck) : Emotions and behaviors are caused by internal dialogue

• Behavioral Economics : More vividly described events are more likely to be true

• Other theories

Superiority of Vocal Modality• Not natural, more convention-based, drift to arbitrary

• Holophrasis : Single word for a complex idea

• Advantageous with all other organs free to do something else

Ape attention-getters - - -> Human pointing —> Demonstratives, Deictics in language Ape intention movements - - -> Human iconic gestures —> Content words(noun, verbs)

Origin of Language

Approaches

• Continuity Theories : Pinker, Ulbaek

• Discontinuity Theories : Chomsky, Berwick, Pääbo

• Genetically encoded faculty : Presence or absence of language-relevant FOXP2 gene

• Socially learned tool of communication : Tomasello

Speculations of Max Müller• Bow-wow or cuckoo theory : imitations of other

animals

• Pooh-pooh : emotional interjections and exclamations

• Ding-dong : vibrating natural resonance

• Yo-he-ho : synchronize muscular labor

• Addition by Paget : Ta-ta (tongue movements mimicking manual gestures)

Signalling Theory

Honest Signaling

Dishonest Signaling

Costly Signaling

Mother Tongues Hypothesis (Fitch, 2004)

• Communication between mother and biological offspring

• Mutual trust due to shared gene

• Extend to far relatives

Obligatory reciprocal Altruism (Ib Ulbæk)

Gossip and grooming Hypothesis (Dunbar)

Gestural Theory• Similar neural systems

for gestures and vocalization

• Nonhuman primates can gesture

Evidence

• Hands-free approach • Visibility issues • Composite multimedia approach

Why the shift to vocalization?

Mirror neurons• Homologous area in monkeys • Provide action-learning, imitation

learning, simulation of others’ behavior

What?

• Cytoarchitectonic homology between monkey premotor area F5 and Human Broca’s area

• fMRI results of gesturing • Granger causality data analysis

Evidence

FOXP2 gene

• “Grammar gene” (Pinker, 1994) • Vocal articulation (Corbalis, 2004) • Associated with non-word repetition, real

word reading efficiency, rapid oral reading (Peter et al, 2011)

• Mutation of the gene causes congenital dyslexia

• Little different from FOXP2 gene in Homo Neanderthals

• Present in almost all nonhuman primates

Grammar

Foundations of Grammar294 Chapter 6

GestureSequences

Combos of PointingIntention-Movements &

Sign and VocalLanguage Mixed

Mainly VocalLanguage

Entrenched NormativelyGrammatical

Grammar ofRequesting

Homo

Grammar ofInforming

Earlier Sapiens

Grammar ofSharing

Later SapiensAPES

Serious Syntax Syntactically mark roles in events ID participants in joint attentional frame

Fancy Syntax Relate events in narrative Track participants across events

Simple Syntax Parse experience into events and participants Combine gestures toward single goal

Figure 6.1Evolutionary foundations of grammar in three steps.

The conventionalization process, taking place in cultural-historical time, is not depicted here, but it is to that (after a brief resummary in different terms) that we now turn.

As another way of summarizing our total, three-step evolutionary account, consider the modern-day creation of linguistic pidgins and creoles under special social circumstances by individuals who are native speakers of different vocal languages. The hypothesis would be that—even though they are cognitively very different from early humans—if these individuals only interacted in something like a work situation in which basically all of the communication was requesting that others do things in the context of the collaborative work activity, the resulting grammatical structure would lack most of the structuring devices of modern languages. To request

Source : Tomasello, Origins of Human communication

Conventionalization of Linguistic Constructions

• Cultural-historical evolution

• Language Change : Change in constructions

Linguistic construction

• Gestalt properties of conventional grammatical constructions "The whole is other than the sum of the parts” - Kurt Koffka

• Construction give meanings, override meanings of words“The dax got mazzed by a gibber”

Language creation and change

• Open and dynamic : Need to be efficient

Resultative Construction : “He pulled the door open and it opened” -> “He pulled the door open”

Relative construction : “Mary gave us food. She was wearing green sweater.” -> “Mary, who was wearing green sweater, gave us food.”

Sentential complement construction : “You will pass the test. I know that.” -> “I know that you will pass the test.”

Infinitival construction : “I want this. I buy it.” -> “I want to buy it.”

Language Creation and Change

• Reduce number of words, number of syllables. “going to” -> “gonna”, “on top of” -> “atop”

• Combining constructions

• Functional reanalysis

Chomskian Universal Grammar

• Human brain contains limited set of constraints for organizing language.

• Creole languages

• Criticisms and Piranha language

Chomsky hierarchy of Languages