Language Evolution and Computation Bibliography

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Philip Lieberman
2008
Behavioral and Brain Sciences 31(5):527-528, 2008
Neural circuits linking local operations in the cortex and the basal ganglia confer reiterative capacities, expressed in seemingly unrelated human traits such as speech, syntax, adaptive actions to changing circumstances, dancing, and music. Reiteration allows the formation of a ...MORE ⇓
Neural circuits linking local operations in the cortex and the basal ganglia confer reiterative capacities, expressed in seemingly unrelated human traits such as speech, syntax, adaptive actions to changing circumstances, dancing, and music. Reiteration allows the formation of a potentially unbounded number of sentences from a finite set of syntactic processes, obviating the need for the hypothetical
2007
The Evolution of Human Speech: Its Anatomical and Neural BasesPDF
Current Anthropology 48(1):39-66, 2007
Human speech involves species-specific anatomy deriving from the descent of the tongue into the pharynx. The human tongue's shape and position yields the 1:1 oral-to-pharyngeal proportions of the supralaryngeal vocal tract. Speech also requires a brain that can ...MORE ⇓
Human speech involves species-specific anatomy deriving from the descent of the tongue into the pharynx. The human tongue's shape and position yields the 1:1 oral-to-pharyngeal proportions of the supralaryngeal vocal tract. Speech also requires a brain that can ``reiterate''--freely reorder a finite set of motor gestures to form a potentially infinite number of words and sentences. The end points of the evolutionary process are clear. The chimpanzee lacks a supralaryngeal vocal tract capable of producing the ``quantal'' sounds which facilitate both speech production and perception and a brain that can reiterate the phonetic contrasts apparent in its fixed vocalizations. The traditional Broca-Wernicke brain-language theory is incorrect; neural circuits linking regions of the cortex with the basal ganglia and other subcortical structures regulate motor control, including speech production, as well as cognitive processes including syntax. The dating of the FOXP2 gene, which governs the embryonic development of these subcortical structures, provides an insight on the evolution of speech and language. The starting points for human speech and language were perhaps walking and running. However, fully human speech anatomy first appears in the fossil record in the Upper Paleolithic (about 50,000 years ago) and is absent in both Neanderthals and earlier humans.
Journal of Phonetics 35(4):552-563, 2007
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The evolution of human speech
Current Anthropology 48(1):39--66, 2007
Human speech involves species-specific anatomy deriving from the descent of the tongue into the pharynx. The human tongue's shape and position yields the 1: 1 oral-to-pharyngeal proportions of the supralaryngeal vocal tract. Speech also requires a brain that can “ ...
2006
Toward an evolutionary biology of language
Harvard University Press: Cambridge, MA, 2006
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface
1. The Mark of Evolution
2. Primitive and Derived Features of Language
3. The Singularity of Speech
4. The Neural Bases of Language
5. Motor Control and the Evolution of Language
6. The Gift of Tongue
7. Linguistic ...MORE ⇓
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface
1. The Mark of Evolution
2. Primitive and Derived Features of Language
3. The Singularity of Speech
4. The Neural Bases of Language
5. Motor Control and the Evolution of Language
6. The Gift of Tongue
7. Linguistic Issues
8. Where We Might Go
Limits on tongue deformation--Diana monkey formants and the impossible vocal tract shapes proposed by Riede et al. (2005)
Journal of Human Evolution 50(2):219-221, 2006
UK PubMed Central (UKPMC) is an archive of life sciences journal literature.
2005
The Linguistic Review 22(2-4):289-301, 2005
The major ''contribution'' of generative grammar to cognitive science is negative. The hermetic disjuncture of linguistic research from biological principles and facts has influenced cognitive science. Linguists have followed the pied piper taking a different path from that ...MORE ⇓
The major ''contribution'' of generative grammar to cognitive science is negative. The hermetic disjuncture of linguistic research from biological principles and facts has influenced cognitive science. Linguists have followed the pied piper taking a different path from that pointed out by Charles Darwin. As Dobzhansky (1973) noted, ''Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.'' The hermetic nature of much linguistic research is apparent even in phonology which must reflect biological facts concerning speech production. For example, studies dating back to 1928 show that tongue ''features'' do not specify vowel distinctions. However, the irrefutable findings of these cineradiographic and MRI studies are generally ignored by linguists. Chomsky's central premise, that syntactic ability derives from an innate ''Universal Grammar'' common to all human beings constitutes a strong biological claim. But if a UG genetically similar for all ''normal'' individuals existed, one of the central premises of Darwinian evolutionary biology, genetic variation would be false. Concepts and processes borrowed from linguistics such as ''modularity'' have impeded our understanding of brain-behavior relations. Some aspects of behavior are regulated in specific localized ''modules'' in the brain, but current research demonstrates that the neural architecture regulating human language is also implicated in motor control, cognition, and other aspects of behavior. The neural bases of enhanced human language are not separable from cognition and motor ability. The supposed unique aspect of syntax, its ''reiterative'' productivity, appears to derive from subcortical structures that play a part in neural circuits regulating motor control. Natural selection aimed at enhancing adaptive motor control ultimately yielded a basal ganglia ''sequencing engine'' that can produce a potentially infinite number of novel actions, thoughts , or ''sentences'' from a finite number of basic elements. Recent studies suggest that the human FOXP2 gene, which differs from similar regulatory genes in chimpanzees and other mammals, acts on the basal ganglia and other subcortical structures to confer enhanced human reiterative ability in domains as different as syntax and dancing. The probable date of the critical mutations on FOXP2 is coincident with the appearance of anatomically modern human beings about 150,000 to 200,000 years ago. Humans thus can create more complex sentences than chimpanzees, but has anyone ever seen an ape dancing?
2004
Linguistic Evolution: Overview
Encyclopedia of Linguistics, 2004
Linguistic Evolution: Physical Preadaptations
Encyclopedia of Linguistics, 2004
2003
Language evolution and Innateness
Mind, Brain and Language, pages 3-22, 2003
I propose a model for the evolution of human language that takes into account evidence derived by means of the comparative method introduced by Charles Darwin. We can only study the physical characteristics and behavior of living species. Stories based on ...
Motor control, speech, and the evolution of human language
Language Evolution: The States of the Art, 2003
2002
Evolution of Language
Encyclopedia of Evolution, pages 605-607, 2002
The evolution of speech in relation to language and thought
New Perspectives in Primate Evolution and Behaviour, 2002
American Journal of Physical Anthropology 119(S35):36-62, 2002
The traditional theory equating the brain bases of language with Broca's and Wernicke's neocortical areas is wrong. Neural circuits linking activity in anatomically segregated populations of neurons in subcortical structures and the neocortex throughout the human brain regulate ...MORE ⇓
The traditional theory equating the brain bases of language with Broca's and Wernicke's neocortical areas is wrong. Neural circuits linking activity in anatomically segregated populations of neurons in subcortical structures and the neocortex throughout the human brain regulate complex behaviors such as walking, talking, and comprehending the meaning of sentences. When we hear or read a word, neural structures involved in the perception or real-world associations of the word are activated as well as posterior cortical regions adjacent to Wernicke's area. Many areas of the neocortex and subcortical structures support the cortical-striatal-cortical circuits that confer complex syntactic ability, speech production, and a large vocabulary. However, many of these structures also form part of the neural circuits regulating other aspects of behavior. For example, the basal ganglia, which regulate motor control, are also crucial elements in the circuits that confer human linguistic ability and abstract reasoning. The cerebellum, traditionally associated with motor control, is active in motor learning. The basal ganglia are also key elements in reward-based learning. Data from studies of Broca's aphasia, Parkinson's disease, hypoxia, focal brain damage, and a genetically transmitted brain anomaly (the putative ``language gene,'' family KE), and from comparative studies of the brains and behavior of other species, demonstrate that the basal ganglia sequence the discrete elements that constitute a complete motor act, syntactic process, or thought process. Imaging studies of intact human subjects and electrophysiologic and tracer studies of the brains and behavior of other species confirm these findings. As Dobzansky put it, ``Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution'' (cited in Mayr, 1982). That applies with as much force to the human brain and the neural bases of language as it does to the human foot or jaw. The converse follows: the mark of evolution on the brains of human beings and other species provides insight into the evolution of the brain bases of human language. The neural substrate that regulated motor control in the common ancestor of apes and humans most likely was modified to enhance cognitive and linguistic ability. Speech communication played a central role in this process. However, the process that ultimately resulted in the human brain may have started when our earliest hominid ancestors began to walk.
2001
On the neural bases of spoken language
In the Mind's Eye: Multidisciplinary perspectives on the evolution of the human mind, pages 172-186, 2001
On the subcortical bases of the evolution of language
New Essays on the Origins of Language, pages 21-40, 2001
Although most studies on the evolution of the neural bases of human language no longer overtly accept the tenets of phrenology, they implicitly accept the proposition that particular regions of the brain constitute the “seats” of language, thinking, memory, and so on. And ...
Summary of ``Human language and our reptilian brain: The subcortical bases of speech, syntax, and thought''
Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 44(1):32-51, 2001
FOR THE PAST 200 YEARS, virtually all attempts to account for the neural bases and the evolution of human language have focused on the neocortex. And in the past 40 years, linguists adhering to Noam Chomsky's theories have essentially equated language with ...
2000
Human language and our reptilian brain: The subcortical bases of speech, syntax, and thought
Harvard University Press, 2000
This book is an entry into the fierce current debate among psycholinguists, neuroscientists, and evolutionary theorists about the nature and origins of human language. A prominent neuroscientist here takes up the Darwinian case, using data seldom considered by ...
1998
Eve Spoke: Human Language and Human Evolution
University of California Press, 1998
The human imagination never ceases to be captivated by the quest for its own roots. Who were our ancestors? In the evolutionary clash of brains and brawn, what was it that prevailed and made us, Homo sapiens, uniquely human? Today scientists cite language as the ...
1997
Language evolution
Encyclopedia of Human Biology, 2nd Edition, pages 243-247, 1997
The leading scholars in the rapidly growing field of language evolution give readable accounts of their theories on the origins of language and reflect on the most important current issues and debates. As well as providing a guide to their own published research ...
1994
Nature 372:325, 1994
METHODS. Subjects were tested at Base Camp (altitude 5,300 m) before and after a summit climb attempt, at Camp Two (6,300 m), and at Camp Three (7,150 m), within a day of arriving at each location. No supplementary oxygen was used at the testing altitudes. Each subject ...
1992
On the Evolution of Human Language
The Evolution of Human Languages, 1992
Speech production, syntax comprehension, and cognitive deficits in Parkinson's disease
Brain and Language 43:169-189, 1992
Abstract Speech samples were obtained that were analyzed for voice onset time (VOT) for 40 nondemented English speaking subjects, 20 with mild and 20 with moderate Parkinson's disease. Syntax comprehension and cognitive tests were administered to these subjects ...
1991
On the evolutionary biology of speech and syntax
Language Origin: A Multidisciplinary Approach, pages 409-429, 1991
Language and Communication 11(1-2):63-65, 1991
Abstract 1. Comments on FJ Newmeyer's (see record 1991-23770-001) stance that human linguistic ability derives from Darwinian processes that account for other aspects of human uniqueness. This is quite close to one of the major premises of P. Lieberman's (in press) ...
1990
Harvard University Press, 1990
In a stimulating synthesis of cognitive science, anthropology, and linguistics, Philip Lieberman tackles the fundamental questions of human nature: How and why are human beings so different from other species? Can the Darwinian theory of evolution explain ...
1984
The Biology and Evolution of Language
Harvard University Press, 1984
This book synthesizes much of the exciting recent research in the biology of language. Drawing on data from anatomy, neurophysiology, physiology, and behavioral biology, Lieberman develops a new approach to the puzzle of language, arguing that it is the result ...
1976
Interactive models for evolution: Neural mechanisms, anatomy and behavior
Origins and Evolution of Language and Speech 280:660-672, 1976
Discussions of the evolution of language frequently involve several implicit assumptions. One premise that is very common is that language is an abrupt, all-ornothing phenomenon. Thus" modern" humans have language, whereas all other animals do not. The inevitable ...
1975
On the Origins of Language: An Introduction to the Evolution of Human Speech
, 1975
An academic directory and search engine.
1971
On the speech of Neanderthal man
Linguistic Inquiry 2:203-222, 1971
* We thank Professors W. Henke and DH Klatt for providing the computer program and suggesting some of the supralaryngeal area functions in the speech synthesis procedure. We also would like to thank Professors HV Vallois, JE Pfeiffer, D. Pilbeam, WS Laughlin, ...