The Origin of Speech

Hockett, Charles F.

doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0960-88

Cited by 1,279 publications

(730 citation statements)

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“…Displaced signals (i.e. signals providing information that is independent from the current context of the sender Hockett, 1960) are not observed. For a simple experimental scenario in which simulated agents develop an ability to communicate the location of spatially distant objects, see Williams et al (2008).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Evolution of Implicit and Explicit Communication in Mobile Robots

Greeff

Nolfi

2009

Evolution of Communication and Language in Embodied Agents

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Abstract. This work investigates the conditions in which a population of embodied agents evolved for the ability to display coordinated/cooperative skills can develop an ability to communicate, whether and to what extent the evolved communication system can complexifies during the course of the evolutionary process, and how the characteristics of such communication system varies evolutionarily. The analysis of the obtained results indicates that evolving robots develop a capacity to access/generate information which has a communicative value, an ability to produce different signals encoding useful regularities, and an ability to react appropriately to explicit and implicit signals. The analysis of the obtained results allows us to formulate detailed hypothesis on the evolution of communication for what concern aspects such us: (i) how communication can emerge from a population of initially noncommunicating agents, (ii) how communication systems can complexifies, (iii) how signals/meanings can originate and how they can be grounded in agents sensory-motor states.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…they provide information that is dependent from the current position/state of the sender Hockett, 1960). Displaced signals (i.e.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evolution of Implicit and Explicit Communication in Mobile Robots

Greeff

Nolfi

2009

Evolution of Communication and Language in Embodied Agents

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“…But more often, we extend the meanings of the words we have to cover those new needs. So, interestingly, though the meaning of words is precise (a property which Hockett, 1960, refers to as 'semanticity' and lists as one of the design features of human languages), it is not altogether fixed. It is this flexibility that underlies our ability to refer to novel entities and situations.…”

Section: Topic-openendedness: the Role Of Meaning Extensionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…By using language, we can refer to and describe any topic that we feel a need to express, situations that are detached from the here-and-now (allowing for displacement, c.f. Hockett, 1960), hypothetical situations, situations that will not or cannot take place, and novel situations. We can always use language to relate to new situations.…”

Section: What Is Special About Human Language: Topic-openendednessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Topic-openendedness: Why recursion is overrated

Meir¹

2018

Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on the Evolution of Language (Evolang12)

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Humans can use language to refer to and describe endless varieties of situations, thoughts, ideas, and topics, including hypothetical situations and events that never happened. This capacity, referred to here as topic-openendedness, is a key feature distinguishing human languages from animal communication systems and any theory of language and language evolution should account for it. Recursion, the mechanism that provides language with the capacity for discrete infinity, can account for the fact that languages can create an infinite number of sentences from a finite set of words and rules. But it cannot account for the openendedness of the contents of those sentences. Therefore, the importance attributed to recursion as the sole mechanism that is uniquely human is overrated. We suggest that a key factor in explaining topic-openendedness is the nature of the linguistic symbols, the words, specifically their ability to extend their meanings beyond their basic meaning, to other, novel semantic domains, by means of cognitive processes such as metonymy and metaphor. Meaning extensions allow language users to apply a finite lexicon to an infinite number of situations and topics, and play a crucial role in explaining topic-openendedness.

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“…A more ambitious list is Hockett's (1958Hockett's ( , 1960Hockett's ( , 1963cf. Linden, 1981;Paivio & Begg, 1981).…”

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confidence: 99%