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The issue of "boundary" between human (cognition, culture,
language) and animal (cognition, culture, communication), like any other
issues and concepts in biology, is not subject to water-tight
generalization. This lack of theorem-like generalities in biological
science marks its fundamental difference from physics/mathematics. The
difference has profound implications on research methodologies and ways
of thinking in these two branches of science. Francis Crick has written
an elegant book (The Mad Pursuit of Knowledge) on this issue based
on his own experience starting as a physicist and then becoming a
biologist. <br><br>
Talmy assumes a continuum between animal cognition, culture,
communication and human cognition, culture and language - a sweeping
generalization resplendent with Givonian speed and epistemology. For
sure, there is a lot of commonality as well as finely graded differences
or continuum within a Linnean order, say, mammals. For example, the body
design, the cytoarchitecture of the brain, the basic emotions (as opposed
to cognitive emotions). Within the confines of communication, facial
expressions are finely graded from lower mammals to higher mammals. The
central issue here, however, concerns language: Is there a clear and
distinct boundary between human language and animal communication?
Conversely, is the difference between human language and higher primate
communication a finely graded continuum like facial
expressions?<br><br>
There are several unbridgeable and distinct boundaries between animal
communicative behavior and the evolutionary development of hominid
communicative behavior leading toward language. The first one is the
emergence of <b>symbolic signals</b>. <b>At the most elemental cognitive
level</b>, a symbolic signal must possess two properties:<br>
(a)<x-tab> </x-tab>It refers to a concrete
object<br>
(b)<x-tab> </x-tab>The reference is
context-independent<br>
This is the beginning of ‘<b>meaning</b>’ and vocabulary. The
emergence of the first symbolic signal referring to a concrete object
represents the crossing of the first ‘missing link’ in hominid evolution.
Animal communicative signals are not symbolic according to our definition
of elemental symbolic signals, and animal communicative signals do not
have ‘meaning’. What they have is ‘<b>function</b>’ such as threat,
distress, begging, appeasement/submission, courtship/copulation,
warning/alarm, recruitment, assembly, dispersion, identification,
territoriality, feeding, etc. Functions must not be confused with
‘meaning”. Each of the following linguistic expressions has the
function of ‘threat’:<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>I’m going
to bite your ears.<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>I’ll kill
you. <br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>I’ll knock
you over.<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>I’m going
to beat you up.<br>
But they all have different meanings, and they have different meanings
because they are linguistic expressions. In animal communicative
behavior, threat signals are just threat signals, no more and no less.
Different species have different threat signals. Some signals are graded
according to the intensity of the signaler’s emotional state, and some,
discrete. Some are structurally more complex involving various components
and several channels of communication, and some are simple. All members
of the same species use the same threat signals, and all threat signals
are emitted by signalers to threaten intended receivers. They have no
meaning. We can make similar statements about any other functional
category of animal communicative signals. <br>
A particular set of animal communicative signals that have received a
great deal of attention is the frequently cited warning signals of vervet
monkeys. (Many other animals have different warning calls for different
approaching predators. Suricates, a burrowing viverrid related to the
mongoose is a good example.) These warning calls are not symbolic signals
because they do not possess property (b). Nevertheless, the warning calls
of the vervet monkeys represent a step toward a symbolic signal, because
they differentiate, for example, reptilian, avian, mammalian and other
predators. The differentiation, however, holds only in the context of
warning. It is not context-free. In other words, a vervet monkey warning
signal has no referential property outside of the context of
warning.<br>
Seyfarth & Cheney (1999) note that vocal production, i.e. delivery of
acoustically defined calls, among apes and monkeys appears fully formed
shortly after birth, suggesting that vocal production may be largely
innate. In addition, Aitken (1981) and Pandya et al (1988) conducted
experiments on capuchin monkeys showing that their vocal production was
mediated primarily by the central (periaqueductal) gray area of the
mid-brain, a phylogenetically very old set of neurons responsible for
arousal and motivational states in all vertebrates. In the case of vervet
monkey’s warning calls, the only role of the neocortex involves
associating a particular involuntary vocalization with a specific
situation. The vocalization is involuntary because it is probably
associated with fear aroused by the situation. Hence an infant vervet
possesses the adult repertoire of vocalization. The learning during
ontological development involves the correct coupling of one involuntary
vocalization with one specific dangerous situation. Each vocalization can
be graded according to intensity. But it is only the coupling process
that is mediated by the neocortex, and this coupling process, according
to Seyfarth & Cheney, requires learning. The neural mechanism we have
just sketched for non-human primate communication contrasts sharply with
the neural mechanism of the production of causal, spoken language. The
production of casual, spoken language is primarily, though not
exclusively, mediated by the neocortex. The emotional/motivational state
of the speaker can be viewed as a coterminous but neurologically separate
dimension of speech expressed primarily in prosody. It is, therefore, not
surprising that participants in casual spoken conversation can talk about
things that are remote in time and space from the occurrence of the
conversation. This is the “displacement” feature of human language that
Charles Hockett (1960) pointed out. It does not exist in non-human
primate communication because a non-human primate communicative signal
tends to be associated with the emotional or motivational reaction to a
particular situation including the animal’s own internal hormonal state.
(The interesting exception here is the waggle dance of homey bees. That
is another story.) <br><br>
Another set of animal communicative signals that might be construed as
symbolic are the signals that have the function of individual
identification. For example, the whistle of the bottlenose dolphin and
the vocalization of social mammals is acoustically unique for each
individual. Consequently members of a social group can identify an
individual upon detecting its vocalization. The identification function
of such animal communication signals parallels the identification
function of the voice of a human. Every human voice is acoustically
unique. Within a social group, members can identify each other by the
voice of a person. The unique quality of the voice, however, does not
constitute a symbolic signal. It does not have the referential property
of the expression “It’s me!” or the referential property of a first
person singular pronoun. Recognition of the voice depends on past
interaction and social familiarity. We cannot identify a stranger’s
voice, although we recognize that it does not belong to someone we know.
The same can be said about the set of animal communicative signals that
have the function of identification. The whistle of the bottle-nosed
dolphin, the coo of a vervet monkey, the bark of a wolf, the grunt of a
warthog and the various other communicative signals used by animals for
maintaining contact within a social group are not symbolic signals. They
are neither words nor names. <br><br>
In short, animal communicative signals in nature do not contain symbolic
signals. Without symbolic signals, there is no meaning. Meaning and
symbolic signals are at the heart of human language. Only symbolic
signals can be concatenated to form larger units of communicative
signals, i.e. morpho-syntactic and discourse units, and only symbolic
signals can lead to metaphors. <br>
<br>
Talmy's point on the nature of language change is partly correct and
partly an attack of a straw-man by lambasting the "extreme
functionalist position" of attributing <b>ALL</b> language change to
social and cultural factors. I don't know of anyone holding such a point
of view. My belief that language change tends to be driven by social and
cultural factors is based on the hypothesis that the default situation of
any language, prehistoric as well as contemporary, is contact.
Contact-induced changes are cultural and socially driven. Unfortunately a
great deal of contact-induced changes in a specific language beyond a
certain time depth cannot be reconstructed. One piece of evidence in
support of my hypothesis is areal features among genetically unrelated
languages. Now we are entering a different domain of linguistics. Suffice
to say that my main point is to clarify that language change has nothing
to do with life expectancy, genetic mutation and reproductive success.
The mainstay of evolution of animal communicative signals is
<b>ritualization</b>. Ritualization typically involves evolutionary
development making a signal more conspicuous, i.e. more strongly
stimulating, and ways of making a signal more stable, i.e. having a
typical form, and typically such evolutionary development occurs on an
evolutionary time scale, i.e. thousands of generations at a minimum, e.g.
exaggeration of movements, addition of brightly colored anatomical
components, creation of new exocrine glands, enlargement of anatomical
components involved in display, etc. In short, ritualization may involve
anatomical, physiological as well as behavioral changes that enhance the
efficiency of the signal. Hence, the addition of properties that are the
consequence of direct selection of increased effectiveness of the signal.
Many of these evolutionary changes of animal communicative signals
involve genetic mutations. <br>
It is true one may couch human cultural development in Darwinian
evolutionary terms. Dawkins tried and proposed "emes" as the
unit of "selection" in cultural evolution, a homology of
"genes" in biological evolution, although genes are not the
only entity on which natural selection operates. Natural selection also
operates on "organism" and "species". But that is
another topic. The relevant point here is that even though one may wish
to couch cultural development in Darwinian's evolutionary theory, it does
not follow that there isn't a quantum leap from animal communicative
behavior to human language. <br>
Steve Long erroneously assumed that discontinuity between animal
communicative behavior and human language implied that human language
originated through mutation. Bickerton, Pinker, Richard Klien, and those
who subscribe to the hypothesis of hardwired universal grammar may
believe that human language originated through genetic mutation. I have
argued that the evolutionary process leading to the crystallization of
language took approximately one to one-and-half million years. There is
no such thing as a linguistic gene. A gene merely specifies the structure
of a protein. Language, however, is a behavior at the highest cognitive
level. It permeates all facets of human cognition. It is not and cannot
be brought about by a single or a few genes! Even a simple biological
trait such as the color of the eye requires a cascade of interactions
among seven different genes. Any defective protein that severely
impairs a person's ability to acquire a language is bound to have
dramatic consequences on the ontological development of that person's
central nervous system. This is not to say that the evolutionary process
leading to the crystallization of language does not involve genetic
mutations. On the contrary, increased encephalization, lengthening
of ontological maturation, enlargement of the vertebral canal and the
concomitant expansion of the thoracic nerves, shrinkage of the
gastrointestinal tract, the decent of the larynx, all of which are
directly related to the emergence of language in hominid evolution,
certainly involve mutations of both structural and regulatory genes. The
kind of genetic mutation that is implausible is the kind that is directly
and exclusively responsible for the origin or the structure of
language!<br>
Talmy mentioned in passing names of great scholars in evolution such as
Ernst Mayr. One of Mayr's seminal contributions in evolution is to point
out how behavior <b>kicks off</b> or <b>initiates</b> a long and
elaborate evolutionary process affecting complex animals such as
vertebrates and mammals. For example, the penetration of a new ecological
niche by a population of animals, which is typically initiated by
behavior, often leads to dramatic evolutionary development. (For example,
cetaceans and the Darwinian finches of the Galapagoes.) The main reason
is that a new ecological niche unleashes a new set of selectional forces.
The evolutionary development initiated by an exceptional or out-of-norm
behavior such as the pentration of a new ecological niche may involve
genetic mutations favored by the new ecological conditions. But the point
is that it is often behavior, not mutation that initiates the
evolutionary development. The obvious advantage of behaviorally
initiated, as opposed to genetically-initiated, evolutionary development
is that behavior can be transmitted among social cohorts and passed on
from one generation to another. For genetic mutation to work in the same
way, it would have to occur simultaneously in at least one male and one
female of a population. Even then, the genetic mutation, in spite of its
adaptive value, may not endure because of genetic drift. If the genetic
mutation entails behavioral change among highly social animals such as
hominids, the very survival of the beneficiaries of the mutation will be
severely jeopardized. Imagine what could happen to an animal in a group
of highly social mammals if it perchance acquired a different mode of
communication through mutation! I have postulated that the
emergence of the first symbolic signal is a behavioral innovation. That
behavioral innovation is what started the ball rolling in hominid
evolution that ultimately led to the crystallization of language, which,
according to a variety of evidence, occurred several tens of thousands of
years after the emergence of anatomically modern humans in Africa,
probably during 80,000 - 60,000 before present. <br><br>
I apologize for the length of this response to Talmy's repartee. As it
stands, the response contains many statements that are
oversimplifications. There are probably also many mistakes as I pecked
them out at my computer with two fingers in great haste. Talmy can
rightfully snicker at my admission of being in haste since I mentioned
Givonian speed at the beginning - "Every criticism is a piece of
autobiography' (Oscar Wilde)! In light of my heavy work load during the
current California budget crisis, I will desist from sending further
replies. I will refer any reader who is interested in my discussion to
two of my recent papers both of which will appear in print any
day:<br><br>
"On the evolutionary origin of language" In <b>Mirror
neurons and the evolution of brain and language</b> , edited by M
Stamenov and V. Gallese, Amsterdam: John Benjamins. (Co-author Jean-Marie
Hombert).<br><br>
"Missing links, issues and hypotheses in the evolutionary origin of
language" In <b>The evolution of language and
pre-language</b>, edited by T. Givon , Amsterdam: John
Benjamins.<br><br>
I might mention an in-progress article that is relevant:<br>
"The evolutionary of basic emotions and their manifestations in
communicative behavior: Human language vs. animal communication" In
<b>Dialogic expressions of basic emotions,</b> edited by Edda Weigand,
Amsterdam: John Benjamins.<br><br>
When I finish writing the in-progress article, I will be happy to send it
to those who request it.<br><br>
Charles<br>
<br><br>
<br><br>
<br><br>
<br><br>
<br><br>
<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>Dear FUNKnetters (and Charles Li),
<br><br>
I have held off from responding to the various notes on the subject of
language, culture, biology and evolution, hoping against all hope to hear
from others what I thought needed to be said. But the more I hear, the
more I am inclined to tear my hairs--the few still remaining--in utter
despair. So, in the interest of refocusing the discussion more
explicitly towards the interface between biology, I would like to
interject the following: <br><br>
The anthropocentric impulse to draw an <b>absolute boundary</b> between
biological evolution ('the animal') and cultural evolution ('history',
'the human') goes back to antiquity, and has been the subject of
repeated (and repetitious) bitter skirmishes ever since. Both Plato
and Aristotle posited this absolute boundary, the latter in terms of the
exclusively-human spirit of <b>rationality</b> (as distinct from the
<b>metabolic</b> and <b>perceptual</b> spirits, which were conceded to
all animate beings). <br><br>
The bitter <b>Darwin-Wallace debate</b> about evolution was about whether
to draw that self-same rigid line between the evolution of the body and
that of the mind/brain/soul. Wallace wanted to draw the line right where
Plato, Aristotle, the Church, Descartes, and all traditional humanist had
drawn it. Darwin insisted on a unitary system--what's good for the body
is good for the soul. Chomsky's and Bickerton's insistence that the
'rise' of language is not governed by the same <b>adaptive
constraints</b> that govern the evolution of all other biological
sub-systems (including 'mere cognition') follows in the very same dualist
tradition. And likewise, the idea that somehow cullture and history are
wholly liberated from adaptive ('functional') constrants, that they
are--to paraphrase Charles Li (and, for that matter, Bill Labov)--matters
of only society and culture, falls squarely on the
Plato-Aristotle-Descartes-Wallace-Chomsky side of the debate. <br><br>
The funny thing is, in biology itself there have been strong recent
trends to obliterate this rigid --artificial, ideological--boundary
between mind/language/culture/behavior and 'plain' structural biology.
Thus, a great evolutionary-biology theorist, <b>Ernst Mayr</b>, as noted
that (loosely paraphrased) 'soft' adaptive behavior is the pacemaker, of
'hard' genetic evolution. And the work of great figures in etology (von
Frisch, Marler, J.T. Bonner, E.O. Wilson, D. Griffin, F. deWaal, to
mention only a few) has been predicated on the interpermeability of
biology and culture. <br>
<br>
It therefore boggles my (admittedly simple) mind to see self-declared
<b>functionalists</b>, who believe that language is <b>adapted</b> to its
main tasks of representation and communication of information, come up
with the idea that the main process that shapes both phonology and
grammar--diachronic development--is somehow only 'culturally' and
'socially' constrained (and pray, what does it mean exactly? Total lack
of constraints?) This certainly flies in the face of all detailed,
fine-grained studies of the process of diachronic change in both
phonology and grammar. <br><br>
"But", the defenders of the strict boundary retort, "what
about cross-language typological variation and the great freedom from
adaptive constraints that it entails?" In response, I would like to
remind everybody of a few things about variation and how it comes about:
<br><br>
First, typological variation is<b> highly constrained. </b>Relatively few
'types' of any linguistic structure are actually attested in
languages--as compared with the plethora of mathematically (or
biologically) possible structures. The fact that <b>more than one type of
structure can perform the same communicative funtion</b> is not unique to
language and culture. It is a cardinal fact in biology, and of the main
process of <b>functional extension</b> (homoplasy), by which a structure
takes over the coding of similar but not-wholely-identical functions (and
may eventually diverge beyond recognition). Evolutionary biology, while
adaptively guided (via selection) is hardly 100% deterministic, or we
would have had only one extant species. <br><br>
Second, the <b>diachronic pathways</b> that give rise to variable
synchronic structure are just as constrained and largely
<b>uni-directional</b>. In both, they closely resemble biological
evolution. And the most common explanation to such constrained evolution
are adaptive. <br><br>
Third, in language diachrony as in biological evolution, the universal
constrains that govern synchronic structure--the eplanatory principles,
the theory--operate largely through the <b>developmental process.</b>
They are to be found in the <b>mechanisms of emergence </b>(be they
ontogenetic, phylogenetic of behavioral-historial, not in the catalogue
of extant synchronic ('typological') structures. <br><br>
Fourth, <b>variation is the very soul of both synchronic biology and
evolution</b>, where species are defined by their variability curves (of
both 'hard' genotype and 'soft', 'behavioral' phenotype); where today's
intra-species population variation is simply the current inventory of
tomorrow's potential evolutionary changes--and thus cross-species
variation. This is exactly what one finds in the relation between
synchronic variation and diachronic change, an observation often
attributed to Bill Labove (tho I cannot find an exact citation...).
<br><br>
Lastly, variation is not only a methodological phenomenon (cf. Labov
again); it is a highly <b>theoretical entity</b> in both biology and
language, and has highly <b>adaptive ('funtional') motivations</b>. The
reservoir of synchronic variants within a population is guarantor of
survival, just in case the context should require <b>alternative adaptive
solutions</b>. <br>
<br>
True enough, diachrony ('history') in both language and culture is 'soft'
and presumably reversible. But so is animal behavior, which is never 100%
constrained by genetics (cf. Mayr's "open program"). Still,
this neither exempts language and cultrure from adaptive constraints, nor
sets them apart from 'plain' biological evolution. <br><br>
It is perhaps time that we quit erecting and re-erecting those artificial
barriers--human vs. animal, body vs. soul/mind, biology vs. culture,
language vs. cognition--and instead re-group to take care of the urgent
task at hand: Investigating and explaining language as and integral part
of this incredibly complex miracle of striving, behaving, adaptive,
evolving life. There is no shame but only strength in being part of the
grand coalition of 'plain' biology. <br><br>
Have a happy holliday season, TG <br><br>
================================= <br><br>
Charles Li wrote: <br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite> 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 various
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. The investigation of the origin of language
is an enterprise concerned with the evolution of the communicative
behavior of our hominid ancestors, <b>NOT</b> the evolution of language.
Chronologically the study of the evolution of language begins from the
time when language crystallized, whereas the study of the origin of
language ends at the crystallization of language. This distinction does
not belittle the significance of the research probing into older and
older layers of human language. Nor does it dismiss the importance of the
proto-human language if and when its features can be inferred. 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. The
evolution of our hominid ancestors' communicative behavior involves
natural selection and genetic mutation. 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. A change
moving the hominids' communicative behavior one step closer to human
language would imply greater communicative efficiency. Greater
communicative efficiency would, in turn, entail greater ease with which
valuable knowledge and experience could be passed from one individual to
another and from one generation to another. 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. <br>
<br>
Given that hominids within the genus of Homo and possibly some gracile
species of the Australopithecine are generalists who did not specialize
in any specific ecological niche, the competitive advantage conferred by
a more effective communicative behavior may explain why there is only one
surviving species within the taxonomic family of hominids. When two
hominid species happened to co-exist as generalists and the communicative
behavior of one species was more effective than that of the other, there
would be a good possibility that the communicatively more advanced
species would eliminate the other through competition, especially when
natural resources dwindled as they did periodically in a dramatic fashion
during the past three million years because of global temperature
fluctuations. <br><br>
The evolution of language, i.e. language change after its
crystallization, is by an large driven by social and cultural factors. It
has nothing to do with genetic mutation, natural selection, life
expectancy or reproductive success. Confusing the evolution of language
with the origin of language may result in attributing features of
language to the communicative behavior of early hominids before the
emergence of language. <br><br>
For details, see attached paper. <br><br>
Charles Li <br>
<br>
<br><br>
At 09:36 AM 12/2/2002 +0200, Tahir Wood wrote: <br>
<br>
<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>>>> Bill Croft
<w.croft@MAN.AC.UK> 11/29/02 06:56PM >>> <br>
One must distinguish between the evolution
of language <br>
and the evolution of languages. The former is the evolution <br>
of human cognition and social behavior that permitted the <br>
rise of modern human language. This is of course an <br>
instance of biological evolution, of human beings. The <br>
latter is the process by which linguistic elements change <br>
over time. This is an evolutionary process, that is it <br>
involves change by replication; but it is not the same <br>
evolutionary process as biological evolution. <br><br>
I prefer to refer to the former as evolution and the latter as history.
Less confusing, and less likely to give the impression that the social
aspect of language change is absent in favour of some kind of biological
determinism: e.g. Africans have 'less developed languages' because they
are racially/biologically 'less developed'. <br>
Tahir</blockquote><br>
___________________________________________________ <br>
Charles Li <br>
Professor of Linguistics, Dean of Graduate Division <br>
University of California, Santa Barbara <br>
Santa Barbara, CA 93106 <br>
Tel:
805-893-2013<x-tab> </x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab>Fax:
805-893-8259</blockquote>
<x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
___________________________________________________<br>
Charles Li<br>
Professor of Linguistics, Dean of Graduate Division<br>
University of California, Santa Barbara<br>
Santa Barbara, CA 93106<br>
Tel:
805-893-2013<x-tab> </x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab>Fax:
805-893-8259</html>