Language Evolution: A Changing Perspective

Corballis, Michael C.

doi:10.1016/j.tics.2017.01.013

Cited by 81 publications

(49 citation statements)

References 71 publications

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“…An adequate model of diachronic language change must establish not only the drivers of change, but also uncover the properties of the communicative system that result in stability of language structure (Croft, 2000). Forces driving language change are diverse, originating in social, cultural and economic influences (Labov, 2001(Labov, , 2007, but there has been a recent increase in interest in the role of cognitive processing as a factor affecting how and whether language structures change or remain stable (e.g., Corballis, 2017;Steels, 2017). Investigations of language change have been energised by cladistics studies of languages, which propose groupings of languages, and words within languages, according to their common ancestry.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cognitive influences in language evolution: Psycholinguistic predictors of loan word borrowing

Monaghan

Roberts

2019

Cognition

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Cognitive influences in language evolution: Psycholinguistic predictors of loan word borrowing Monaghan, P.; Roberts, S.G. A B S T R A C TLanguages change due to social, cultural, and cognitive influences. In this paper, we provide an assessment of these cognitive influences on diachronic change in the vocabulary. Previously, tests of stability and change of vocabulary items have been conducted on small sets of words where diachronic change is imputed from cladistics studies. Here, we show for a substantially larger set of words that stability and change in terms of documented borrowings of words into English and into Dutch can be predicted by psycholinguistic properties of words that reflect their representational fidelity. We found that grammatical category, word length, age of acquisition, and frequency predict borrowing rates, but frequency has a non-linear relationship. Frequency correlates negatively with probability of borrowing for high-frequency words, but positively for low-frequency words. This borrowing evidence documents recent, observable diachronic change in the vocabulary enabling us to distinguish between change associated with transmission during language acquisition and change due to innovations by proficient speakers.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cognitive influences in language evolution: Psycholinguistic predictors of loan word borrowing

Monaghan

Roberts

2019

Cognition

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“…To them, language is not an autonomous computational cognitive mechanism but a means of communication (preferably by way of speech) that is somehow implemented by a combination of existing cognitive and sensorimotor capabilities. In fact, this point of view is repeated once more in a recent riposte to B&C (Corballis, 2017). It is as if for these authors, the faculty of language does not exist-to paraphrase Chomsky.…”

Section: The Nature Of Languagementioning

confidence: 88%

Making sense of language in the light of evolution

Bolhuis

2017

Mind & Language

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Inquiry into language evolution has been controversial, mainly because there is no consensus as to the nature of both ‘evolution’ and ‘language.’ Berwick and Chomsky make sense of the evolution of language by treating it as a biological phenomenon. In contrast to functional characterizations of language as ‘communication’ or ‘speech,’ the authors define it as, essentially, a mind‐internal computational mechanism. Within their minimalist approach, hierarchical syntactic structure is achieved through the recursive application of a basic operation called ‘Merge.’ The simplicity of the basic operation is consistent with archeological evidence suggesting an evolutionary recent origin of language.

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“…Linguistics is deeply impacted by philosophy, logistics and semiology respectively. From ancient times, religion and philosophy have regarded language as a faculty bestowed uniquely and suddenly on our own species, primarily as a mode of thought with communication as a byproduct [3]. This view deeply persists among some scientists and linguists and is counter to the theory of evolution, but it has been argued by Chomsky, he starts from language itself as a unique mental process and with intrinsic biological properties.…”

Section: The Origin Of Language-from Myth Philosophy and Biological mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Nevertheless, the emergence of a new organ in one single step is much more complex than we think so as language. Language is also undeniable complex, given that its rules of operation are still not well understood after some 60 years of Chomskian linguistics [3].…”

Section: Challenge To Theory Of Evolutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, they come to a conclusion that "there is every reason to believe that language has been shaped by natural selection as it is understood within the orthodox "synthetic" or "neo-Darwinian" theory of evolution". changes can "complex changes can occur through mutations in regulatory genes that orchestrate the timing of development rather than through the emergence of new genes" [3]. Nevertheless, actual evolutionary is that such mutations, neither apply to add complexity, nor have the sign of complex changings, so it is argued that they cannot explain the sudden emergence of a system as complex as grammar.…”

Section: Challenge To Theory Of Evolutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Language Evolution in Biolinguistics from a Multi-Factor Perspective

Shao¹

2019

OALib

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Biolinguistics is an interdisciplinary subject derived from the interaction of biology and linguistics. In 1967, after the publication of Biological Foundations of Language by Lenneberg E.H., the vision of Language study has been introduced into the field of biology. Later, Chomsky proposed the term of language faculty and regarded language as "an organ of the body". Different from traditional linguists' description of the rules of language externalization, Chomsky focuses on the biological mechanism of internalized language. The challenge of theory of evolution in biology has also enriched the study of the origin and evolution of language. This thesis will begin with the mythological origin and philosophical foundation of language, chase the challenge of evolutionary theory, and discuss two groups of basic properties of language, which is unity and diversity, recursiveness and thinking, so as to further study the relation between language and its biological basis, that is, from language and speech organ, language and thought to language and gene, to analyze the uniqueness of human language competence.

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Language Evolution: A Changing Perspective

Cited by 81 publications

References 71 publications

Cognitive influences in language evolution: Psycholinguistic predictors of loan word borrowing

Cognitive influences in language evolution: Psycholinguistic predictors of loan word borrowing

Making sense of language in the light of evolution

Language Evolution in Biolinguistics from a Multi-Factor Perspective

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