Language Evolution and Computation Bibliography

We propose that some aspects of language evolved to fit the brain, whereas other aspects co-evolved with the brain. Cladistic analysis indicates that common basic structures of both action and grammar arose in phylogeny six million years ago and in ontogeny before age two, with a shared prefrontal neural substrate. In contrast, mirror neurons, found in both humans and monkeys, suggest that the neural basis for intersubjectivity evolved before language. Natural selection acts upon genes controlling the neural substrates of these phenotypic language functions.

We approach the issue of holophrasis versus compositionality in the emergence of protolanguage by analyzing the earliest combinatorial constructions in child, bonobo, and chimpanzee: messages consisting of one symbol combined with one gesture. Based on evidence from apes learning an interspecies visual communication system and children acquiring a first language, we conclude that the potential to combine two different kinds of semiotic element '' deictic and representational '' was fundamental to the protolanguage forming the foundation for the earliest human language. This is a form of compositionality, in that each communicative element stands for a single semantic element. The conclusion that human protolanguage was exclusively holophrastic '' containing a proposition in a single word '' emerges only if one considers the symbol alone, without taking into account the gesture as a second element comprising the total message.