Evolution, and 'functional' + 'social'

[Steve Long]

In a message dated 12/2/02 12:33:31 PM, li at GRADDIV.UCSB.EDU writes:
<< Using the expression, "the evolution of language", to refer to the
evolution of hominid communicative behavior prior to the crystallization of
language implies that language was the communicative tool of all hominids.
Yet no one would assume that Orrorin tugenensis, Kenyanthropus, the variou
species of Ardipithecus, Australopithecus and Paranthropus had language.
Indeed, most of the species in the genus of Homo probably did not have
language if 'language' designates the casual, spoken language of
anatomically modern humans.>>

There are several problems here.  One of them is that the "crystalization" of
language suggests that some observable threshold was crossed between
non-language-using and language using humans (or pre-humans).

But this simply does not match evolutionary processes.  There is little
possibility that a single mutated trait suddenly appeared -- like some mammal
with superior camoflage -- and quickly in a few generations turned a formerly
non-language-using population into a language-using population.

The obvious reason is this first "speaker" would have no one else to talk to
and no reason to be favored in selection by the mating population of some
early non-language-using group.  Why would the mere ability to use language
gain any reproductive advantage, if the trait only had future utility?

There is no reason to postulate a "crystalization" of language.  Like the
giraffe's neck, the evolution of modern language capability must have been a
slow process where the adaptive advantage of culture, interpersonal
communication and cooperation shaped the biology over a very, very long
period of time.  It is difficult to see what other purpose the physiological
organs of language would have served in the mean time, so its logical to
conclude that they evolved as part and parcel of what Charles Li calls
"hominid communicative behavior."

The basic mistake here I think is to forget the critical role of human (or
pre-human) culture in the evolution of language capabilities.

The selection for modern language that must have gone on would not have been
the raw environment or enemies or other such Spencerian nonsense, but rather
the environment of human culture.  Over long periods of time, the complex
physiological attributes of modern language were being favored not by climate
or food sources or conflict, but by the human (or pre-human) cultural
preference for interpersonal communication.  Other advantages who have been
incidental.

The gap in evidence between human non-language and language is huge.  We
really have no examples of the intermediate stages.  This leads us, wrongly I
think, to act as if language capability emerged full-blown one extraordinary
paleolithic moment.  But this matches no naturalistic observation anywhere
else in evolution.  Rather, it makes sense that basic language was in use
among humans (or pre-humans) long before complex modern language capabilities
developed.  Unless one can suggest another intermediate value for the organs
used in modern language -- particularly complex vocal cords and whatever
syntax and grammar processing we have in our brain, none of which could have
happened at the drop of a hat -- we should look to human (or pre-human)
culture and the pre-existing need for interactive communication as the prime
mover of human language capability.

In this sense cultural evolution would have shaped biological (Darwinian)
evolution in favoring language.  But to do that culture must have been
present from before the process began.  And something very much like language
must have been present from early on.

<<The investigation of the origin of language is an enterprise concerned with
the evolution of the communicative behavior of our hominid ancestors, NOT the
evolution of language... One of the most important reasons for making this
distinction is the fundamental difference between the ways language changes
and the ways hominid communicative behavior changes. The latter, like animal
communicative behavior, is subject to the constraint of Darwinian evolution.
>>

First of all, how can the evolution of "communicative behavior" be separated
from the evolution of "language"?  When exactly is "language" not
"communicative behavior"?  As far as hominid communicative behavior being
contrained by Darwinian processes -- what does that mean?  Are we to think
that hominids could not learn to communicate in new ways or to communicate
new information before language suddenly appeared?  Are we to think that
pre-humans could not learn to behave "communitatively" in new ways or to
communicate new ideas or to increase the complexity of their communications?
All this seems highly improbable.  They may not have used modern language,
but modern language is not a prerequisite to complex or innovative
communication.  However, complex and innovative communication may have been a
prerequisite to language.

<<A change of their communicative behavior in the direction toward the
emergence of language was adaptive in the sense that it enhanced their life
expectancy and reproductive success. Those hominids who made the change
achieved a higher level of fitness than those hominids who failed to make the
change.  Rapid and efficient transmission of knowledge conferred an immense
competitive advantage to the hominids for securing resources and possibly
vanquishing others, including other species of hominids whose communicative
behavior was less developed in the direction toward language
crystallization.>>

Please, are we to think that some pre-human who suddenly started using
adjectives had a prayer in a survival test against pre-humans with the
communal fighting or hunting capabilities of, say, a non-language-using wolf
pack?  Survival value in those days was not equivalent to taking an entrance
exam.

There are plenty of ways non-human animals communicate and cooperate that are
in no way inferior to human language in a given situation.  There is nothing
"advanced" about language in many natural situations where language gives no
distinctly observable advantage to an individual - or even necessarily to the
group.  You can talk all you want but the big fast guy with the club is still
going to catch you and hit you on the head.  All advantages are local and
whether language is an advantage -- in almost all cases -- is very much a
matter of a local, temporary situation.

There is, however, one less ephemeral advantage to a language-using culture,
if not a specific individual.  And that is that language allows for the
accumulation of information that lasts beyond the lifetime of an individual.

Evolution theory says you can pass on a biological trait to the next
generation, but you cannot pass on an acquired trait -- e.g., what you've
learned in your lifetime.  That is, UNLESS of course you can somehow
communicate it to the next generation.  As Stephen Jay Gould pointed out,
cultural evolution is Lamarckian -- it allows the passing on of acquired
traits from one generation to the next.  Culture and language break that
Darwinian rule about acquired traits.

Language is the ideal medium by which such information can transfer and
accumulate, so that it can represent many generations of individual learning.
 This seems to be an advantage over biological inheritance, which would
relegate humans and other species to starting all over again from scratch
every generation.  And it would mean obviously that human cultures would
favor those who could use language to preserve and transfer such information
- the very information that human culture is made out of.

The passing on of "acquired traits" is occasionally observed in other
animals.  But human accumulation of learning -- of acquired traits -- is
obviously quantitatively much greater.

And that brings us back to pre-human or proto-human "communicative behavior."
 Whatever its form or structure might have been, its adaptive value would be
the same as modern language.  The functional forces which favored the
development of complex communication between pre-human individuals would have
been the same that favored the development of modern human language.  And, in
my book, are the same forces that continue to affect modern languages.  There
is a continuum here and no unnatural
"emergence" of some trait of long-term dormant value.  No crystalization.

If I were looking for a moment when modern language became probable, the
latest I would look would be when human tools started being produced in a way
that required the passing on of technique from one generation to another.
Although such information could have been passed on by demonstration only, I
doubt it would have been remembered without some kind of language - without
use of rudimentary syntax, grammar and a language's other means of coveying
and preserving information with particularity from one individual to another.

And whether we talk about change in a language or the changes that made
language possible, fundamental outcomes should dictate structure.

Birds are born with wings.  We put wings on our airplanes.  Even when we
reach beyond our Darwinian bodies, we shape our solutions the way Darwinian
processes would.  The environmental opportunities and constraints that
originally produced language should be basically the same that produce
persistent changes in modern languages.  Form follows function, whether we
create it or evolution does.  And because these structures will often look a
lot a like, we can't always be sure who did what.  (With the possible
exception of the wheel.  It seems that biological evolution up to this point
has made very little use of the wheel.)

Steve Long