Post on 03-Aug-2020
transcript
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