The faculty of language: what is it, who has it, and how did it evolve?

Hauser, Marc D.; Chomsky, Noam; Fitch, W. Tecumseh

doi:10.1017/cbo9780511817755.002

Cited by 1,105 publications

(1,761 citation statements)

References 91 publications

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“…Although this field currently has some catching up to do relative to studies of the biology and evolution of language (''biolinguistics''), it may profit by following some of the positive lessons from that related field as well as learning from some of its mistakes Hauser et al, 2002). Positive lessons include the need to break a complex behaviour into independent components, the value of a comparative approach, and the importance of a pluralistic Tinbergian perspective that sees mechanistic, ontogenetic, phylogenetic and functional questions as complementary topics of separate and equal relevance.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It also jibes with the greater individual variability (Judd, 1988;Sloboda, 1985) in music-making skills today (which are, by hypothesis, no longer as strongly selected) relative to language skills (currently under powerful positive selection). From the comparative perspective, we have abundant evidence that music-like communication systems can evolve relatively easily (at least three times among birds and three times in mammals), while a complex communication system with the ability to communicate arbitrary meanings has evolved only once, in humans (Hauser et al, 2002;Marler, 2000). This makes a hypothesis in which complex signals (''song'') evolved first, and that meanings were added to these signals later (e.g., Wray, 2002) quite parsimonious from a comparative viewpoint.…”

Section: Music As Protolanguagementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Ultimately, we might expect more rapid progress in understanding the biology of music, because music has better analogs in the natural world (e.g., bird or whale ''song'', convergently evolved) and because several human musical abilities have plausible homologous precursors in our primate relatives. But at present, discussions of the biology and evolution of lan-guage have progressed further, and thus biolingustics provides a context and framework for my discussion here (Fitch, 2005;Hauser, Chomsky, & Fitch, 2002).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The biology and evolution of music: A comparative perspective

2006

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Studies of the biology of music (as of language) are highly interdisciplinary and demand the integration of diverse strands of evidence. In this paper, I present a comparative perspective on the biology and evolution of music, stressing the value of comparisons both with human language, and with those animal communication systems traditionally termed ''song''. A comparison of the ''design features'' of music with those of language reveals substantial overlap, along with some important differences. Most of these differences appear to stem from semantic, rather than structural, factors, suggesting a shared formal core of music and language. I next review various animal communication systems that appear related to human music, either by analogy (bird and whale ''song'') or potential homology (great ape bimanual drumming). A crucial comparative distinction is between learned, complex signals (like language, music and birdsong) and unlearned signals (like laughter, ape calls, or bird calls). While human vocalizations clearly build upon an acoustic and emotional foundation shared with other primates and mammals, vocal learning has evolved independently in our species since our divergence with chimpanzees. The convergent evolution of vocal learning in other species offers a powerful window into psychological and neural constraints influencing the evolution of complex signaling systems (including both song and speech), while ape drumming presents a fascinating potential homology with human instrumental music. I next discuss the archeological data relevant to music evolution, concluding on the basis of prehistoric bone flutes that instrumental music is at least 40,000 years old, and perhaps much older. I end with a brief review of adaptive functions proposed for music, concluding that no one selective force (e.g., sexual selection) is adequate to explaining all aspects of human music. I suggest that questions about ARTICLE IN PRESSthe past function of music are unlikely to be answered definitively and are thus a poor choice as a research focus for biomusicology. In contrast, a comparative approach to music promises rich dividends for our future understanding of the biology and evolution of music.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Music As Protolanguagementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The biology and evolution of music: A comparative perspective

2006

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“…Recursion has been argued to be a key human ability (Hauser, Chomsky, & Fitch, 2002) and is a core component of many computational systems (e.g. Church, 1936).…”

Section: Recursion (L S)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Bootstrapping in a language of thought: A formal model of numerical concept learning

Piantadosi¹,

Tenenbaum²,

2012

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In acquiring number words, children exhibit a qualitative leap in which they transition from understanding a few number words, to possessing a recursive system of interrelated numerical concepts. We present a computational framework for understanding this inductive leap as the consequence of statistical inference over a sufficiently powerful representational system. We provide an implemented model that is powerful enough to learn number word meanings and other related conceptual systems from naturalistic data. The model shows that bootstrapping can be made computationally and philosophically well-founded as a theory of number learning. Our approach demonstrates how learners may combine core cognitive operations to build sophisticated representations during the course of development, and how this process explains observed developmental patterns in number word learning.

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“…Hauser et al, 2002;Pinker and Jackendoff, 2005). (1997) people add about a thousand word forms per year.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Distinct morphological processing of recently learned compound words: An ERP study

et al. 2015

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EEG Morphology N400Overt speech Priming a b s t r a c t Our vocabulary is, at least in principle, infinite. We can create new words combining existing ones in meaningful ways to form new linguistic expressions. The present study investigated the morphological processing of novel compound words in overt speech production. Native speakers of Dutch learned a series of new compounds (e.g. appelgezicht, 'apple-face') that were later used as primes in a morphological priming task. In this protocol, primes were compound words morphologically related to a target's picture name (e.g. appelgezicht was used for a picture of an apple, Dutch appel). The novel primes were compared with corresponding familiar compounds sharing a free morpheme (e.g. appelmoes, 'applesauce') and with unrelated compounds. Participants were required to read aloud words and to name pictures in a long-lag design. Behavioral and event-related potentials (ERPs) data were collected in two sessions, separated by 48 h. Clear facilitation of picture naming latencies was obtained when pictures were paired with morphological related words. Notably, our results show that novel compounds have a stronger priming effect than familiar compounds in both sessions, which is expressed in a marked reduction in target naming latencies and a decrease in the N400 amplitude. These results suggest that participants focused more on the separate constituents when reading novel primes than in the case of existing compounds.

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The faculty of language: what is it, who has it, and how did it evolve?

Cited by 1,105 publications

References 91 publications

The biology and evolution of music: A comparative perspective

The biology and evolution of music: A comparative perspective

Bootstrapping in a language of thought: A formal model of numerical concept learning

Distinct morphological processing of recently learned compound words: An ERP study

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