Evolutionary Linguistics Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

- by Oleg Zholobov
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- Historical Linguistics, Evolutionary Linguistics, Proto-Slavic, Numerals

In this paper, I will investigate one general theory of language change that can be subsumed under the functional and usage-based paradigms: William Croft’s Theory of Utterance
Selection as proposed in his 2000 book “Explaining Language Change. An Evolutionary Approach”, which draws on the Darwinian idea of evolution and proposes a general framework that is supposed to explain the workings of language change. As an empirical example I will use the ongoing spread of TH-fronting in British English (BrE) in order to test whether his Theory of Utterance Selection (henceforth his theory or the theory) can be brought in line with
popular arguments put forward to explain this case of language change. Indeed, I argue that Croft’s theory can be used to explain motivations for TH-fronting in Great Britain.

- by Jeff Stebbins
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- Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Evolutionary Linguistics

Symbolic artefacts have long been archaeology's primary contribution to tracing the origin and subsequent development of human language. But the identification and interpretation of symbolic behaviour poses numerous interpretive problems, particularly before the Upper Palaeolithic where clearly referential forms of symbolic material are rare. As an alternative, theory of mind is presented here, detailing its intimate relationship with language and likely coevolution, alongside the factors which make it a more effective proxy. As a cognitive ability that grades in complexity and predicts linguistic skill in modern cognition, theory of mind also has the potential to denote specific syntactic and semantic features of language such as word reference, mental state verbs and complementation. The potential to detect theory of mind in the archaeological record is considered here, such as within the cultural transmission of stone tool technology and forms of complex social learning like imitation and teaching in early hominin technologies.

- by Cory M Stade
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- Palaeolithic Archaeology, Theory of Mind, Symbolism, Cognitive archaeology

In this paper I argue that there is a wealth of relevant theorizing in the field of Cognitive Linguistics that can make important contributions to the study of the evolution of language and cognition. Theoretical explications of the conceptual, interactive, symbolic and perspectival dimension of language in Cognitive Linguistics, especially in the domain of cognitive construal operations, are highly relevant for evolutionary accounts of language. Specifically, I propose that the Mental Spaces and Conceptual Integration framework, popularly known as “blending theory”, is very well suited to model the representational system that had to evolve in the human lineage in order to make possible the interactive and dynamic process of meaning construction fundamental to linguistic interaction.

- by Michael Pleyer
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- Cognitive Science, Human Evolution, Language Evolution, Cognitive Linguistics
- by Iain Mobbs
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- Human Evolution, Historical Linguistics, Phonology, Language Variation and Change

The aim of this paper was to comparatively analyze some
(Proto)Indo-European and Oromo-Cush phonological, lexical and
grammatical items and roots. It was triggered by competing
debates and models on (Proto-)Indo-European ((P-)IE) origin, one
of which is the Ancient Model pointing to Africa. (P-)IE and closest
relatives, Eurasiatic and Anatolian, data was collected from the
literature. Pertinent Oromo corpora and native speaker data were
collected. They were subjected to the Comparative Model analysis.
Quite intriguing results showing significant level of resemblance,
both in form and meaning, and implications emerged.

This paper provides a systematic account of the emergence of contour tone, based on a ‘syllable-tone-register’ model and a large body of new firsthand acoustic tonal data. The emergence of tone is a process of pitch upgrading from an accompanying feature of phonation types to a distinctive feature. It involves three linguistic prerequisites, which bring about three processes: (L1) various phonation types, clear voice, breathy voice, falsetto, etc., which intrinsically induce pitch differences. (L2) Mono-syllabic (with great sonorous power) morpheme structure that enhance the pitch differences. (L3) Phonologicalization, which conceptualizes the enhanced pitch differences to a phonological category, tone. Furthermore, this paper proposes two ecological preconditions behind the linguistic prerequisites: (N1) Humid climates, which tend to induce a breathy voice. (N2) Small body-size, which tends to induce falsetto and creaky voice. A flowchart is designed to show how these prerequisites lead to different types of the world’s languages and finally output contour tone.

- by Xiaonong Zhu
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- Phonology, Laboratory/Experimental Phonology, Tones, Phonetics-Phonology Interface
- by Drazen Pehar
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- Evolutionary Biology, Cognitive Science, Philosophy, Philosophy Of Language

k e y w o r d s Origin and evolution of language Units and levels of evolution Evolutionary mechanisms Processes Hierarchies Extended Synthesis Applied Evolutionary Epistemology Philosophy of biology
a b s t r a c t Modern evolutionary biology is currently characterized by epistemological divergence because, beyond organisms and genes, scholars nowadays investigate a plurality of units of evolution, they recognize multilevel selection, and especially from within the Extended Synthesis, scholars have identified a plurality of evolutionary mechanisms that besides natural selection can explain how the evolution of anatomical form and functional behavior occur. Evolutionary linguists have also implicated a multitude of units, levels and mechanisms involved in (aspects of) language evolution, which has also brought forth epistemological divergence on how language possibly evolved. Here, we examine how a general evolutionary methodology can become abstracted from how biologists study evolution, and how this methodology can become implemented into the field of Evolutionary Linguistics. Applied Evolutionary Epistemology (AEE) involves a systematic search and analysis of the units (that what evolves), levels (loci where evolution takes place), and mechanisms (means whereby evolution occurs) of language evolution, allocating them into ontological hierarchies, and distinguishing them from other kinds of evolution. In this paper in particular, we give an in-depth analysis of how AEE enables an identification, examination, and evaluation of levels and mechanisms of language evolution, and we hone in on how hierarchies and mechanisms of language (evolution) can and have been defined differentially. For an in-depth analysis of units of language evolution, we refer the reader to Gontier (2017) for which this paper functions as a follow-up. Thus, rather than present a specific theory of how language evolved, we present a methodology that enables us to unite existing research programs as well as to develop theories on the subject at hand.

- by Nathalie Gontier
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- Ontology, Philosophy Of Language, Philosophy of Science, Philosophy of Biology

Language change and language acquisition can be considered an ideal testing ground for investigating the interconnections of biological, cognitive, and cultural factors in the evolution of language (cf. Kirby 2012). This paper focuses on the key role of construal operations in language and cognition, i.e. the capacity to conceptualise states of affairs in specific ways and from different perspectives (cf. e.g. Verhagen 2007). We argue that perspectival construal is a general structuring principle of language that applies to all levels of its organisation and use. Based on previous research as well as on our own findings from corpus data, we will demonstrate that it also plays a crucial role in both language acquisition and language change. This in turn has important implications for the evolution of language. We discuss a variety of examples showing how language as a Complex Adaptive System (Beckner et al. 2009) reflects the dynamicity of perspectival construal operations. Our findings elucidate that the cognitive drive for perspectival construal, as well as the cognitive resources, capacities, and constraints involved in linguistic perspectivation, are of significant importance in the evolution of language.

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.

- by Nathalie Gontier and +1
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- Semiotics, Cognitive Psychology, Evolutionary Psychology, Experimental Psychology

Combining theory from cognitive semantics and pragmatics, this book offers both a new theoretical model and a new usage-based method for the under- standing of intersubjectivity, and how social cognition is expressed linguistic- ally at different levels of complexity. Bringing together ideas from linguistics and Theory of Mind, Vittorio Tantucci demonstrates the way in which speakers constantly monitor and project their interlocutor’s reactions to what is being said, and sets out three distinct categories of social cognition in first language acquisition and language change. He also shows how this model can be applied in different settings and includes a range of examples from languages across the globe, to demonstrate the cross-linguistic universality of the model. Additionally, the book offers insights into the gradient dimension of intersubjectivity in language evolution and across the autistic spectrum. Original and innovative, it will be invaluable for researchers in cognitive linguistics, pragmatics, historical linguistics, applied linguistics and cognitive psychology. Vittorio Tantucci is Lecturer in Linguistics at Lancaster University. His research combines diachronic and ontogenetic naturalistic data to shed light on the human ability to express social cognition at different levels of linguistic complexity.

The study of language has been historically proposed as a model for human sciences. For the structuralists, it is because languages, like society, and cultural habits , are man-made rule-based systems. For the Darwinists, it is because cultures and societies are like living species, and can be studied with biological methodology. Sociology, biology and linguistics are considered analogous in different ways. To support work in theoretical and applied linguistics, this paper discusses the problem of the nature of language, investigating how the question "What is language?" has been approached from different angles. Textbook answers guide us in many different directions: language is a tool for communication-and for thinking. It is a collection of words and instructions how to use them. It is the characteristic which-arguably separates humans from other animals. It is a social construction, a system of symbols, a system of systems, and so on. To classify perspectives, the intellectual history of schools of linguistic thought is examined, connecting linguistic theory with related disciplines. A taxonomy is proposed based on two axes: humanistic versus biological; and historical versus systemic. Main linguistics frameworks are identified and placed into a fourfold table based on these axes. They include the Bloomfieldian school (Type 1); Saussurean structuralism and its derivatives (Type 2); generative grammar and biolinguistics (Type 3); and cognitive-evolutionary linguistics (Type 4).

In the evolution of humans from hominid ancestors, language somehow arose. The process of developing syntax is a matter of lively debate among syntacticians, anthropologists, and evolutionary psychologists. Due to the lack of primary data, the question will never be satisfactorily answered, but I present here a comparison of the major theories.

O objetivo principal deste trabalho é recontextualizar o tema da evolução da linguagem para as ciências linguísticas, uma vez que praticamente todo o trabalho sobre esse tópico até a década de 1980 foi conduzido por primatólogos, antropólogos, etólogos e especialistas de outras áreas. Para esse fim, também é necessário discutir introdutoriamente alguns tópicos em teoria evolutiva, assim como rever parte da pesquisa feita por esses pesquisadores de outras áreas. A linha de pensamento que estrutura esse trabalho foi inspirada na produção acadêmica do linguista Derek Bickerton, por conta de suas quase quatro décadas de pesquisa nas áreas de crioulização e da hipótese da protolinguagem (termo de acepção evolutiva e não filológica), assim como seu interesse ativo em promover o tópico e sua relevância dentro da linguística.

- by Tiago Kroich
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- Language Evolution, Linguistics, Evolutionary Linguistics, Lingüística

Recently, we have witnessed an explosion of studies and discussions claiming that Neanderthals engaged in a range of “symbolic” behaviors, including personal ornament use (Radovčić et al. 2015), funerary practices (Balzeau et al. 2020), visual arts (Hoffmann et al. 2018), body aesthetics (Roebroeks et al. 2012), etc. In Paleolithic archaeology, it has become mainstream to axiomatically infer from these putative behaviors that Neanderthals engaged in symbol use and that Neanderthals thus possessed some form of language. Rudolf Botha’s bombastic title "Neanderthal Language: Demystifying the Linguistic Powers of Our Extinct Cousins" provides a detailed and very critical overview of the archaeological hypotheses and speculations about Neanderthal language.

- by Nathalie Gontier and +2
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- Evolutionary Biology, Evolutionary Psychology, Experimental Psychology, Philosophy of Mind

In this paper we argue that we can gain important insights on the evolution of language and cognition by integrating evolutionary linguistics and the framework of Cognitive Linguistics. In Cognitive Linguistics, language is seen as tightly integrated with cognition as a whole. Construction Grammar and usage-based approaches are closely related to the Cognitive-Linguistic paradigm. Construction Grammar proposes that knowledge of language can be defined as the knowledge of form-meaning pairings of different degrees of schematicity and complexity, whereas usage-based approaches stress that language acquisition and processing are based on instances of actual language usage. As we demonstrate in this paper, concepts from Cognitive Linguistics, construction grammar, and usage-based approaches can help in elucidating the cognitive and interactional factors involved in language evolution. The paper will focus on two main areas: In evolutionary linguistics, language is seen as a complex adaptive system whose structure emerges out of the interaction of three other complex adaptive systems at three different timescales: ontogeny, glossogeny, and phylogeny. Cognitive Linguistics can help in specifying common cognitive factors and processes that play a role on all three of these timescales. Secondly, a Cognitive-Linguistic and constructionist, usage-based perspective can shed light on the cognitive factors underlying the origin of the division of labour between contentful (‘lexical’) and procedural (‘grammatical’) in language structure. In a Cognitive-Linguistic perspective, this development can be related to the tradeoff between the cognitive factors of learnability and expressivity.

- by Michael Pleyer
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- Cognitive Science, Languages and Linguistics, Cognition, Language Evolution

This volume is the first collection of papers that is exclusively dedicated to the concept of exaptation, a notion from evolutionary biology that was famously introduced into linguistics by Roger Lass in 1990. The past quarter-century has seen a heated debate on the properties of linguistic exaptation, its demarcation from other processes of linguistic change, and indeed the question of whether it is a useful concept in historical linguistics at all. The contributions in the present volume reflect these diverging points of view. Along with a comprehensive introduction, covering the history of the notion of exaptation from its conception in the field of biology to its adoption in linguistics, the book offers extensive discussion of the concept from various theoretical perspectives, detailed case studies as well as critical reviews of some stock examples. The book will be of interest to scholars working in the fields of evolutionary linguistics, historical linguistics, and the history of linguistics.

- by Muriel Norde and +1
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- Historical Linguistics, Japanese Linguistics, Germanic linguistics, Grammaticalization

Looking at the fate of the concept of exaptation in historical linguistics, this article attempts an extension of exaptation from morpho-syntactic change to phonological change. It argues that explicit recognition of the links between language change and other manifestations of Darwinian evolution can provide a context in which the use of this concept might be justified. Borrowing exaptation as a biologically inspired metaphorical label, on the other hand, seems to be of little use in studying phonological change. First, an overview of the applications of exaptation in linguistics is provided (Section 2). Afterward, the historical data adduced in this paper to verify the usefulness of exaptation in studying sound change are presented (Section 3). Consequently, two ways in which exaptation can be applied in the analysis of these data are presented; first (Secion 4.1), a superficially evolutionary approach, which treats exaptation as a biologically inspired metaphorical label, and second (Section 4.2), a strictly evolutionary approach, which goes beyond metaphorical extensions of biological terms to linguistics, and which instead treats languages as truly evolutionary systems.

- by Kamil Kaźmierski
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- Historical Linguistics, Phonology, Evolutionary Linguistics, Exaptation

Let us suppose that you are a research linguist, tormented by some doubts and questions about the state of your profession, and not constrained by having to repeat a catechism of "known truths" to Linguistics 101 students, and not worried about employment tenure. How would you actually go about tackling "the central problem of linguistics", namely how we acquire and maintain knowledge of the probability of systemic relationships in a language?

'Discourse history' can be can be conceived of as a sub-or sister-discipline of historical linguistics that focuses on socio-and pragmalinguistically motivated changes. How far does such theory construction help us to establish a coherent set of objects and methods of the historical dimension of Critical Discourse Analysis? And how can such a research perspective be integrated with approaches of related disciplines such as the history of ideas/conceptual history, rhetoric, historical pragmatics and sociolinguistics? The paper investigates these questions with reference to the diachronic account of metaphor, with special regard to the conceptualization of state/society as a (human) body. Aspects of this metaphorical mapping have become lexicalized as set phrases (body politic, head of government etc.) that are still in use today; however, we can trace their use back to and beyond medieval times. Does such a tradition of use constitute a discourse history in an empirically testable sense? Or are we just dealing with repeated instances of what is fundamentally an 'ahistorical' cognitive operation? In conclusion, I shall propose a multidisciplinary approach that aims to reconcile the cognitive analysis of metaphors and the historical modelling of their development in discourse traditions.

- by Nikolaus Ritt and +1
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- Historical Linguistics, Phonology, Historical Morphology, Evolutionary Linguistics
- by Andreas Baumann and +2
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- Evolutionary Linguistics

Thus far, the fact that, in a sufficient number of cases, human discourse ceases to play the role of a dominant medium of interacting between some political/diplomatic parties, which motivates such parties to engage in violent interaction, including primarily war, was not described in more detail, let alone theorized or explained in satisfactory terms – this book fills the gap by proposing, on discourse-ethical premises, a discourse-theoretical analysis of communication patterns as actually displayed by political/diplomatic actors.
Hence, this book's key contention is that the attitude to language should be theorized as one of the major causes of war. Perhaps the easiest way to put it is to quote a famous Canadian fiction writer, Margaret Atwood, one of whose characters stated that war is what happens when language fails.

- by Drazen Pehar
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- Critical Theory, Discourse Analysis, History, Social Theory

Статья посвящена реконструкции первого шага от системы коммуникации животных (СКЖ) к языку, попытке определения вида, на долю которого пришелся этот шаг, и периода времени, в который произошло это событие. Реконструкция опирается на данные антропологических, биологических, нейрофизиологических, лингвистических и семиотических исследований.
The paper is devoted to the reconstruction of the first step from the animal communication system to the human language and to an attempt to establish the period of time and the species that made this step. The exploration was based on data from different scientific disciplines, such as anthropology, biology, neurophysiology, linguistics and semiotics.

- by Nathalie Gontier
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- Anthropology, Philosophy, Languages and Linguistics, Historical Linguistics

Recent discoveries of semantic compositionality in Japanese tits have enlivened the discussions on the presence of this phenomenon in wild animal communication. Data on semantic compositionality in wild apes are lacking, even though language experiments with captive apes have demonstrated they are capable of semantic compositionality. In this paper, I revisit the study by Boesch (Hum. Evol. 6:81–89, 1991) who investigated drumming sequences by an alpha male in a chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) community in the Taï National Park, Côte d’Ivoire. A reanalysis of the data reveals that the alpha male produced semantically compositional combined messages of travel direction change and resting period initiation. Unlike the Japanese tits, the elements of the compositional expression were not simply juxtaposed but displayed structural reduction, while one of the two elements in the expression coded the meanings of both elements. These processes show relative resemblance to blending and fusion in human languages. Also unlike the tits, the elements of the compositional expression did not have a fixed order, although there was a fixed distribution of drumming events across the trees used for drumming. Because the elements of the expression appear to carry verb-like meanings, the compositional expression also resembles simple verb-verb constructions and short paratactic combinations of two clauses found across languages. In conclusion, the reanalysis suggests that semantic compositionality and phenomena resembling paratactic combinations of two clauses might have been present in the communication of the last common ancestor of chimpanzees and humans, not necessarily in the vocal modality.

- by Petar Gabrić
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- Ethology, Languages and Linguistics, Semantics, Language Evolution
- by Nathalie Gontier and +2
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- Evolutionary Biology, Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy of Science, Philosophy of Biology
- by Nathalie Gontier
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- Languages, Evolutionary Biology, Cognitive Psychology, Set Theory

By the end of the nineteenth century, thinking about languages in organicist, evolutionary terms had spread throughout the world. Romanticism, in its various forms, had metamorphosed into evolutionary thought, and philology was rediscovered as biology. Central to the evolutionary perspective was the notion that language is an organism whose development and transformation are subject to natural laws. Although we know so much about this important chapter in European intellectual history, we know far less about the resonance of romantic and evolutionary thought beyond Europe, where struggles against European colonialism engendered movements of cultural revival and gave romanticism and evolutionary thought a distinctive local character. This essay sheds some light on the local conditions and dynamics that made thinking about language in evolutionary terms not only possible, but productive, in the Arab east. lt considers the role of the Lebanese writer, novelist and historian Jurji Zaydan (1861-1914), who was most probably the first to view "Arabic as a Living Organism".

- by Nikolaus Ritt
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- Historical Linguistics, English language, Linguistics, Evolutionary Linguistics