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Different kinds of parsimony: association-learning versus bodily mimesis 不同种类的节俭:联想学习与身体模仿
IF 2.6 Pub Date : 2018-01-01 DOI: 10.1093/JOLE/LZY003
J. Zlatev
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引用次数: 1
Scala naturae: The impact of historical values on current ‘evolution of language’ discourse Scala的本质:历史价值对当前“语言进化”话语的影响
IF 2.6 Pub Date : 2018-01-01 DOI: 10.1093/JOLE/LZX017
Robert Ullrich, Moritz Mittelbach, K. Liebal
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引用次数: 2
SRGAP2 and the gradual evolution of the modern human language faculty SRGAP2与现代人类语言能力的逐渐演变
IF 2.6 Pub Date : 2018-01-01 DOI: 10.1093/jole/lzx020
Pedro Tiago Martins,Maties Marí,Cedric Boeckx
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引用次数: 0
What aDNA can (and cannot) tell us about the emergence of language and speech aDNA能(和不能)告诉我们语言和言语的出现
IF 2.6 Pub Date : 2018-01-01 DOI: 10.1093/JOLE/LZX018
R. DeSalle, I. Tattersall
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引用次数: 24
Rethinking the relationship between pronoun-drop and individualism with Bayesian multilevel models 用贝叶斯多层模型重新思考代词下降与个人主义的关系
IF 2.6 Pub Date : 2017-07-01 DOI: 10.1093/JOLE/LZX003
Sean Lee
Can the language we speak determine how we represent the world around us? To those familiar with the theory of linguistic relativity, this may seem like an age-old question about which everyone has their own answer. Although the evidence supporting linguistic relativity remains controversial, the long reach of language into our perception and behavior is nevertheless an intriguing possibility that deserves further investigation. Here I take a closer look at a case of linguistic relativity that had a particularly strong impact on cross-cultural research: the pronoun-drop effect. The theory of pronoun-drop effect posits that languages that allow their speakers to drop subject pronouns in verbal communication would lead their speakers to create collectivistic culture. It was argued that the absence of pronouns necessitates the speakers to embed their self-identities in the context of social interaction, so the linguistic practice of omitting pronouns would reduce the sense of individuality in the minds of speakers. After conducting a series of Bayesian multilevel analyses on the original dataset, however, the current study concludes that the pronoun-drop effect is unlikely to be a robust, universal phenomenon. The analyses revealed that the majority of statistical signal supporting the phenomenon comes from the Indo-European language family, and other families provided little or inconsistent evidence. It was also observed that the Indo-European languages alone made up 61 per cent of the original dataset, and dropping them from analysis completely nullified the pronoun-drop effect. These observations suggest that the pronoun-drop effect is a consequence of failing to account for (i) varying effects among language families and (ii) overrepresentation of the Indo-European languages. With these results, this article suggests that the theory of pronoun-drop effect should be thoroughly revised. Additionally, the article provides several suggestions for many similar cross-cultural studies that suffer from the same problems as the pronoun-drop effect study.
我们所说的语言能决定我们如何代表我们周围的世界吗?对于那些熟悉语言相对论的人来说,这似乎是一个古老的问题,每个人都有自己的答案。尽管支持语言相对性的证据仍然存在争议,但语言对我们的感知和行为的长期影响仍然是一种有趣的可能性,值得进一步研究。在这里,我将仔细观察一个对跨文化研究产生特别强烈影响的语言相关性案例:代词脱落效应。代词省略效应理论认为,允许说话人在言语交际中省略主代词的语言会导致说话人创造集体主义文化。有人认为,代词的缺失使说话人必须将自己的身份嵌入社会互动的语境中,因此省略代词的语言实践会降低说话人心目中的个性。然而,在对原始数据集进行了一系列贝叶斯多级分析后,目前的研究得出结论,代词脱落效应不太可能是一种稳健的普遍现象。分析表明,支持这一现象的大多数统计信号来自印欧语系,而其他语系提供的证据很少或不一致。还观察到,仅印欧语系就占原始数据集的61%,将它们从分析中删除完全消除了代词删除效应。这些观察结果表明,代词脱落效应是由于没有考虑到(i)语系之间的差异效应和(ii)印欧语言的过度代表性。鉴于这些结果,本文建议对代词脱落效应理论进行彻底的修正。此外,本文还为许多类似的跨文化研究提供了一些建议,这些研究与代词脱落效应研究存在相同的问题。
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引用次数: 1
Gorillas may use their laryngeal air sacs for whinny-type vocalizations and male display 大猩猩可能会用它们的喉部气囊发出呜呜式的声音和雄性的展示
IF 2.6 Pub Date : 2017-07-01 DOI: 10.1093/JOLE/LZX012
Marcus Perlman, Roberta Salmi
Great apes and siamangs—but not humans—possess laryngeal air sacs, suggesting that they were lost over hominin evolution. The absence of air sacs in humans may hold clues to speech evolution, but little is known about their functions in extant apes. We investigated whether gorillas use their air sacs to produce the staccato ‘growling’ of the silverback chest beat display. This hypothesis was formulated after viewing a nature documentary showing a display by a silverback western gorilla (Kingo). As Kingo growls, the video shows distinctive vibrations in his chest and throat under which the air sacs extend. We also investigated whether other similarly staccato vocalizations—the whinny, sex whinny , and copulation grunt —might also involve the air sacs. To examine these hypotheses, we collected an opportunistic sample of video and audio evidence from research records and another documentary of Kingo’s group, and from videos of other gorillas found on YouTube. Analysis shows that the four vocalizations are each emitted in rapid pulses of a similar frequency (8–16 pulses per se-cond), and limited visual evidence indicates that they may all occur with upper torso vibrations. Future research should determine how consistently the vibrations co-occur with the vocalizations, whether they are synchronized, and their precise location and timing. Our findings fit with the hypothesis that apes—especially, but not exclusively males—use their air sacs for vocalizations and displays related to size exaggeration for sex and territory. Thus changes in social structure, mating, and sexual dimorphism might have led to the obsolescence of the air sacs and their loss in hominin evolution.
类人猿和类人猿——而不是人类——拥有喉部气囊,这表明它们在人类进化过程中消失了。人类没有气囊可能为语言进化提供线索,但对它们在现存猿类中的功能知之甚少。我们调查了大猩猩是否使用它们的气囊来产生银背胸拍表演中断断续续的“咆哮”。这一假设是在观看了一部自然纪录片后形成的,该纪录片展示了一只银背西部大猩猩(金戈)的表演。当金戈咆哮时,视频显示他的胸部和喉咙有明显的振动,下面的气囊延伸。我们还调查了其他类似的断音——呜呜声、性呜呜声和交配声——是否也与气囊有关。为了检验这些假设,我们从研究记录和金戈小组的另一部纪录片以及YouTube上发现的其他大猩猩的视频中收集了一些视频和音频证据的机会样本。分析表明,这四种发声都是以相似频率的快速脉冲(每秒8-16脉冲)发出的,有限的视觉证据表明,它们都可能与上半身振动一起发生。未来的研究应该确定振动与发声的一致性,它们是否同步,以及它们的精确位置和时间。我们的研究结果与假设相符,即猿类——尤其是,但不只是雄性——使用它们的气囊来发声,并展示与性别和领土的大小夸大有关的展示。因此,社会结构、交配和两性二态性的变化可能导致了气囊的过时和它们在人族进化中的消失。
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引用次数: 5
Usage context influences the evolution of overspecification in iterated learning 使用语境影响迭代学习中过度指定的演变
IF 2.6 Pub Date : 2017-07-01 DOI: 10.1093/JOLE/LZX011
Peeter Tinits, Jonas Nölle, S. Hartmann
This article investigates the influence of contextual pressures on the evolution of overspecification, i.e. the degree to which communicatively irrelevant meaning dimensions are specified, in an iterated learning setup. To this end, we combine two lines of research: In artificial language learning studies, it has been shown that (miniature) languages adapt to their contexts of use. In experimental pragmatics, it has been shown that referential overspecification in natural language is more likely to occur in contexts in which the communicatively relevant feature dimensions are harder to discern. We test whether similar functional pressures can promote the cumulative growth of referential overspecification in iterated artificial language learning. Participants were trained on an artificial language which they then used to refer to objects. The output of each participant was used as input for the next participant. The initial language was designed such that it did not show any overspecification, but it allowed for overspecification to emerge in 16 out of 32 usage contexts. Between conditions, we manipulated the referential context in which the target items appear, so that the relative visuospatial complexity of the scene would make the communicatively relevant feature dimensions more difficult to discern in one of them. The artificial languages became overspecified more quickly and to a significantly higher degree in this condition, indicating that the trend toward overspecification was stronger in these contexts, as suggested by experimental pragmatics research. These results add further support to the hypothesis that linguistic conventions can be partly determined by usage context and shows that experimental pragmatics can be fruitfully combined with artificial language learning to offer valuable insights into the mechanisms involved in the evolution of linguistic phenomena.
本文研究了语境压力对过度指定进化的影响,即在迭代学习环境中,与交流无关的意义维度被指定的程度。为此,我们结合了两条研究路线:在人工语言学习研究中,已经表明(微型)语言适应其使用环境。在实验语用学中,已经表明自然语言中的指称过度指定更有可能发生在交际相关特征维度难以辨别的环境中。我们测试了在迭代人工语言学习中,类似的功能压力是否能促进指称过度指定的累积增长。参与者接受了一种人工语言的训练,然后他们用这种语言来指代物体。每个参与者的输出被用作下一个参与者的输入。最初的语言是这样设计的,即它没有表现出任何过度指定,但它允许在32个使用上下文中的16个上下文中出现过度指定。在条件之间,我们操纵了目标项目出现的参考上下文,因此场景的相对视觉空间复杂性将使其中一个项目中与交流相关的特征维度更难辨别。实验语用学研究表明,在这种情况下,人工语言的过度指定速度更快,程度也明显更高,这表明在这些情况下,过度指定的趋势更强。这些结果进一步支持了语言惯例可以部分由使用语境决定的假设,并表明实验语用学可以与人工语言学习有效结合,为了解语言现象演变的机制提供有价值的见解。
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引用次数: 18
The emergence of linguistic structure in an online iterated learning task 在线迭代学习任务中语言结构的出现
IF 2.6 Pub Date : 2017-07-01 DOI: 10.1093/JOLE/LZX001
Clay Beckner, J. Pierrehumbert, J. Hay
Previous research by Kirby, Cornish & Smith (2008) has found that strikingly compositional language systems can be developed in the laboratory via iterated learning of an artificial language. However, our reanalysis of the data indicates that while iterated learning prompts an increase in language compositionality, the increase is followed by an apparent decrease. This decrease in compositionality is inexplicable, and seems to arise from chance events in a small dataset (4 transmission chains). The current study thus investigates the iterated emergence of language structure on a larger scale using Amazon Mechanical Turk, encompassing 24 independent chains of learners over 10 generations. This richer dataset provides further evidence that iterated learning causes languages to become more compositional, although the trend levels off before the 10th generation. Moreover, analysis of the data (and reanalysis of Kirby, Cornish & Smith, 2008) reveals that systematic units arise along some meaning dimensions before others, giving insight into the biases of learners.
Kirby, Cornish和Smith(2008)之前的研究发现,通过对人工语言的反复学习,可以在实验室中开发出引人注目的组合语言系统。然而,我们对数据的重新分析表明,虽然反复学习促进了语言组合性的增加,但这种增加之后会出现明显的下降。这种组合性的下降是无法解释的,似乎是由一个小数据集(4个传输链)中的偶然事件引起的。因此,目前的研究使用亚马逊土耳其机器人在更大范围内研究语言结构的迭代出现,包括超过10代的24个独立的学习者链。这个更丰富的数据集提供了进一步的证据,证明迭代学习导致语言变得更有组成性,尽管这种趋势在第10代之前趋于平稳。此外,对数据的分析(以及对Kirby, Cornish & Smith, 2008年的重新分析)表明,系统单位在某些意义维度上先于其他维度出现,从而深入了解学习者的偏见。
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引用次数: 34
In the beginning: A review of Robert C. Berwick and Noam Chomsky's Why Only Us. 从头开始:评罗伯特-C-贝里克和诺姆-乔姆斯基的《为什么只有我们》。
IF 2.1 N/A LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS Pub Date : 2017-07-01 Epub Date: 2017-04-07 DOI: 10.1093/jole/lzx005
Michael Studdert-Kennedy, Herbert Terrace

We review Berwick and Chomsky's Why Only Us, Language and Evolution, a book premised on language as an instrument primarily of thought, only secondarily of communication. The authors conclude that a Universal Grammar can be reduced to three biologically isolated components, whose computational system for syntax was the result of a single mutation that occurred about 80,000 years ago. We question that argument because it ignores the origin of words, even though Berwick and Chomsky acknowledge that words evolved before grammar. It also fails to explain what evolutionary problem language uniquely solved (Wallace's question). To answer that question, we review recent discoveries about the ontogeny and phylogeny of words. Ontogenetically, two modes of nonverbal relation between infant and mother begin at or within 6 months of birth that are crucial antecedents of the infant's first words: intersubjectivity and joint attention. Intersubjectivity refers to rhythmic shared affect between infant and caretaker(s) that develop during the first 6 months. When the infant begins to crawl, they begin to attend jointly to environmental objects. Phylogenetically, Hrdy and Bickerton describe aspects of Homo erectus' ecology and cognition that facilitated the evolution of words. Hrdy shows how cooperative breeding established trust between infant and caretakers, laying the groundwork for a community of mutual trust among adults. Bickerton shows how 'confrontational scavenging' led to displaced reference, whereby an individual communicated the nature of a dead animal and its location to members of the group that could not see it. Thus, both phylogenetically and ontogenetically, the original function of language was primarily an instrument of communication. Rejecting Berwick and Chomsky's answer to Wallace's question that syntax afforded better planning and inference, we endorse Bickerton's view that language enabled speakers to refer to objects not immediately present. Thus arose context-free mental representations, unique to human language and thought.

我们回顾了贝里克和乔姆斯基的《为什么只有我们,语言与进化》一书,该书认为语言主要是思维工具,其次才是交流工具。作者的结论是,通用语法可以简化为三个生物学上孤立的组成部分,其句法计算系统是大约 8 万年前发生的一次突变的结果。我们对这一论点提出质疑,因为它忽略了词汇的起源,尽管贝里克和乔姆斯基承认词汇的进化早于语法。它也没有解释语言独特地解决了什么进化问题(华莱士的问题)。为了回答这个问题,我们回顾了最近关于词的本体进化和系统进化的发现。从本体论角度看,婴儿与母亲之间的两种非语言关系模式始于出生后 6 个月或 6 个月内,它们是婴儿首次开口说话的关键先决条件:主体间性和共同注意。主体间性指的是婴儿和看护人之间有节奏的共同情感,这种情感是在出生后 6 个月内形成的。当婴儿开始爬行时,他们开始共同关注环境中的物体。从系统发育的角度来看,赫迪和比克顿描述了直立人的生态学和认知促进文字进化的各个方面。赫迪展示了合作繁殖如何在婴儿和看护人之间建立信任,为成年人之间的相互信任奠定了基础。比克顿展示了 "对抗性拾荒 "如何导致移位参照,即个体将动物尸体的性质和位置传达给看不到的群体成员。因此,无论是从系统发育还是从本体发育来看,语言最初的功能主要是一种交流工具。贝里克和乔姆斯基在回答华莱士的问题时认为,句法可以提供更好的规划和推理,我们拒绝接受这一观点,我们赞同比克顿的观点,即语言使说话者能够指代非直接存在的对象。因此,产生了人类语言和思维所独有的无语境心理表征。
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引用次数: 0
Infinitely productive language can arise from chance under communicative pressure 无限多产的语言可以在交际压力下偶然产生
IF 2.6 Pub Date : 2017-07-01 DOI: 10.1093/JOLE/LZW013
S. Piantadosi, Evelina Fedorenko
Human communication is unparalleled in the animal kingdom. The key distinctive feature of our language is productivity: we are able to express an infinite number of ideas using a limited set of words. Traditionally, it has been argued or assumed that productivity emerged as a consequence of very specific, innate grammatical systems. Here we formally develop an alternative hypothesis: productivity may have rather solely arisen as a consequence of increasing the number of signals (e.g. sentences) in a communication system, under the additional assumption that the processing mechanisms are algorithmically unconstrained. Using tools from algorithmic information theory, we examine the consequences of two intuitive constraints on the probability that a language will be infinitely productive. We prove that under maximum entropy assumptions, increasing the complexity of a language will not strongly pressure it to be finite or infinite. In contrast, increasing the number of signals in a language increases the probability of languages that have—in fact—infinite cardinality. Thus, across evolutionary time, the productivity of human language could have arisen solely from algorithmic randomness combined with a communicative pressure for a large number of signals.
人类的交流在动物界是无与伦比的。我们的语言最显著的特点是生产力:我们能够用有限的一组单词表达无限的想法。传统上,人们一直认为或认为生产力是非常具体的、天生的语法系统的结果。在这里,我们正式提出了另一种假设:在额外的假设下,处理机制在算法上不受约束的情况下,生产力可能仅仅是由于通信系统中信号(例如句子)数量的增加而产生的。使用算法信息论的工具,我们检查了两个直觉约束对语言无限生产力概率的影响。我们证明,在最大熵假设下,增加语言的复杂性不会强烈地迫使它是有限的或无限的。相反,增加一种语言中信号的数量会增加语言实际上具有无限基数的概率。因此,在整个进化过程中,人类语言的生产力可能仅仅来自于算法的随机性和大量信号的交流压力。
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引用次数: 18
期刊
Journal of Language Evolution
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