Evolutionary roads to syntax

Zuberbühler, Klaus

doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2019.03.006

Cited by 32 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 73 publications

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“…Previous work has suggested that Non-AD processing in language may be a novel application of an evolutionarily ancient ability for computing complex spatial, temporal, or social relationships/hierarchies ( 15 , 26 , 42 , 43 ). Our principal finding that the evolutionary origins of Non-AD processing predates the evolution of language provides key support for this hypothesis.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nonadjacent dependency processing in monkeys, apes, and humans

et al. 2020

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The ability to track syntactic relationships between words, particularly over distances (“nonadjacent dependencies”), is a critical faculty underpinning human language, although its evolutionary origins remain poorly understood. While some monkey species are reported to process auditory nonadjacent dependencies, comparative data from apes are missing, complicating inferences regarding shared ancestry. Here, we examined nonadjacent dependency processing in common marmosets, chimpanzees, and humans using “artificial grammars”: strings of arbitrary acoustic stimuli composed of adjacent (nonhumans) or nonadjacent (all species) dependencies. Individuals from each species (i) generalized the grammars to novel stimuli and (ii) detected grammatical violations, indicating that they processed the dependencies between constituent elements. Furthermore, there was no difference between marmosets and chimpanzees in their sensitivity to nonadjacent dependencies. These notable similarities between monkeys, apes, and humans indicate that nonadjacent dependency processing, a crucial cognitive facilitator of language, is an ancestral trait that evolved at least ~40 million years before language itself.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nonadjacent dependency processing in monkeys, apes, and humans

et al. 2020

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“…Yet, such test may bring information on how birds perceive and deal with combinations and shed light on whether it could be considered semantic compositionality in the human sense (Dutour, Léna, et al., 2019). Semantic compositionality (also termed compositional syntax by some authors) occurs when a combination of words has a meaning emerging from its individual parts (each part having its own meaning), and when the order of such parts is important (Engesser & Townsend, 2019; Suzuki et al., 2019; Zuberbühler, 2019). Debates on whether the “I notes followed by D notes” mobbing sequence can approach human compositional syntax have been profuse (Bolhuis et al, 2018a; Bolhuis et al, 2018b; Suzuki et al, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Great tits (Parus major) adequately respond to both allopatric combinatorial mobbing calls and their isolated parts

2020

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When mobbing a predator, birds often produce specific mobbing calls that are efficient in recruiting both conspecifics and heterospecifics. Recent studies on Parids have demonstrated that these mobbing calls are in fact a combination of two distinct calls—first, introductory notes eliciting vigilance in the receiver, then broadband frequency notes (D notes) triggering approach. Debates on a parallel between human syntax and this form of combination have emerged. The degree to which this combinatoriality is perceived in heterospecific communication may shed light onto the relative complexity of such combinatoriality. In this study, our aim was to determine whether European great tits (Parus major) appropriately responded to mobbing calls (and their isolated parts) of an allopatric species, the black‐capped chickadee (Poecile atricapillus), a North‐American species which produces similar combinatorial mobbing calls. In addition, we tested whether the behavioural response to complete mobbing sequences was different than the simple sum of its two constituents. As we hypothesized, great tits behaved differently when hearing the two isolated calls or the complete mobbing sequence: they produced calls and displayed excitement signs only towards the complete mobbing sequence. Moreover, great tits responded to the introductory and D notes by respectively scanning and approaching, and to the complete sequence by mobbing. Our results altogether support the emerging hypothesis of semantic compositionality in Parids, although the present study does not definitively demonstrate the existence of this cognitive process in the great tit.

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“…Along the same lines, Dor (2015) describes language as "the instruction of imagination." Zuberbühler (2019) suggests that grammar itself derives from the perceived structure of events and evolved before communicative language itself. This compositional structure is made up of components such as actors, agents, patients, predication, and so on, and marking them with communicative signals.…”

Section: Language As Thoughtmentioning

confidence: 99%

Crossing the Rubicon: Behaviorism, Language, and Evolutionary Continuity

Corballis

2020

Front. Psychol.

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Euan Macphail's work and ideas captured a pivotal time in the late 20th century when behavioral laws were considered to apply equally across vertebrates, implying equal intelligence, but it was also a time when behaviorism was challenged by the view that language was unique to humans, and bestowed a superior mental status. Subsequent work suggests greater continuity between humans and their forebears, challenging the Chomskyan assumption that language evolved in a single step ("the great leap forward") in humans. Language is now understood to be based on an amalgam of cognitive functions, including mental time travel, theory of mind, and what may be more broadly defined as imagination. These functions probably evolved gradually in hominin evolution and are present in varying degrees in non-human species. The blending of language into cognition provides for both interspecies differences in mental function, and continuity between humans and other species. What does seem to be special to humans is the ability to communicate the contents of imagination, although even this is not absolute, and is perhaps less adaptive than we like to think.

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Evolutionary roads to syntax

Cited by 32 publications

References 73 publications

Nonadjacent dependency processing in monkeys, apes, and humans

Nonadjacent dependency processing in monkeys, apes, and humans

Great tits (Parus major) adequately respond to both allopatric combinatorial mobbing calls and their isolated parts

Crossing the Rubicon: Behaviorism, Language, and Evolutionary Continuity

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