Musings of a Palaeolinguist

Hannah recently directed me towards a new language evolution blog: Musings of a Palaeolinguist. From my reading of the blog, the general flavour seems to be focused on gradualist and abruptist accounts of language evolution. Here is a section from one of her posts, Evolution of Language and the evolution of syntax: Same debate, same solution?, which also touches on the protolanguage concept:

In my thesis, I went through a literature review of gradual and abruptist arguments for language evolution, and posited an intermediate stage of syntactic complexity where a language might have only one level of embedding in its grammar.  It’s a shaky and underdeveloped example of an intermediate stage of language, and requires a lot of exploration; but my reason for positing it in the first place is that I think we need to think of the evolution of syntax the way many researchers are seeing the evolution of language as a whole, not as a monolithic thing that evolved in one fell swoop as a consequence of a genetic mutation, but as a series of steps in increasing complexity.

Derek Bickerton, one of my favourite authors of evolutionary linguistics material, has written a number of excellent books and papers on the subject.  But he also argues that language likely experienced a jump from a syntax-less protolanguage to a fully modern version of complex syntax seen in languages today.  To me that seems unintuitive.  Children learn syntax in steps, and non-human species seem to only be able to grasp simple syntax.  Does this not suggest that it’s possible to have a stable stage of intermediate syntax?

I’ve generally avoided writing about these early stages of language, largely because I had little useful to say on the topic, but I’ve now got some semi-developed thoughts that I’ll share in another post. In regards to the above quote, I do agree with the author’s assertion of there being an intermediate stage, rather than Bickerton’s proposed jump. In fact, we see languages today (polysynthetic) where there are limitations on the level of embedding, with one example being Bininj Gun-wok. We can also stretch the discussion to look at recursion in languages, as Evans and Levinson (2009) demonstrate:

In discussions of the infinitude of language, it is normally assumed that once the possibility of embedding to one level has been demonstrated, iterated recursion can then go on to generate an infinite number of levels, subject only to memory limitations. And it was arguments from the need to generate an indefinite number of embeddings that were crucial in demonstrating the inadequacy of finite state grammars. But, as Kayardild shows, the step from one-level recursion to unbounded recursion cannot be assumed, and once recursion is quarantined to one level of nesting it is always possible to use a more limited type of grammar, such as finite state grammar, to generate it.

The 20th Anniversary of Steven Pinker & Paul Bloom: Natural Language and Natural Selection (1990)

The day before yesterday Wintz mentioned two important birthdays in the field of language evolution (see here): First, Babel’s Dawn turned four, and second, as both Edmund Blair Bolles and Wintz pointed out, Steven Pinker‘s and Paul Bloom‘s seminal paper “Natural Language and Natural Selection” (preprint can be found here) has its 20th anniversary.
Wintz wrote that he planned on writing
“a post on Pinker and Bloom’s original paper, and how the field has developed over these last twenty years, at some point in the next couple of weeks,”
and I thought I’d also offer a short perspective on the paper, by reposting an slightly edited post I wrote on the paper in 2008 (yes I know, I do a lot of reposting of old material, but I’m planning on writing more new stuff as well, I promise 😉 ).
So here we go:

Language and Thought: Joshua Knobe speaks to Lera Boroditsky

Bloggingheads.tv hosts an interesting conversation between experimental philosopher Joshua Knobe and psychologist/linguist Lera Boroditsky (you should know who she is by now). It’s mostly going over the work of Boroditsky, although I thought Knobe did a good job of asking the right questions and taking a back seat when needed:

Some Links #19: The Reality of a Universal Language Faculty?

I noticed it’s almost been a month since I last posted some links. What this means is that many of the links I planned on posting are terribly out of date and these last few days I haven’t really had the time to keep abreast of the latest developments in the blogosphere (new course + presentation at Edinburgh + current cold = a lethargic Wintz). I’m hoping next week will be a bit nicer to me.

The reality of a universal language faculty? Melodye offers up a thorough post on the whole Universal Grammar hypothesis, mostly drawing from the BBS issue dedicated Evans & Levinson (2009)’s paper on the myth of language universals, and why it is a weak position to take. Key paragraph:

When we get to language, then, it need not be surprising that many human languages have evolved similar means of efficiently communicating information. From an evolutionary perspective, this would simply suggest that various languages have, over time, ‘converged’ on many of the same solutions.  This is made even more plausible by the fact that every competent human speaker, regardless of language spoken, shares roughly the same physical and cognitive machinery, which dictates a shared set of drives, instincts, and sensory faculties, and a certain range of temperaments, response-patterns, learning facilities and so on.  In large part, we also share fairly similar environments — indeed, the languages that linguists have found hardest to document are typically those of societies at the farthest remove from our own (take the Piraha as a case in point).

My own position on the matter is fairly straightforward enough: I don’t think the UG perspective is useful. One attempt by Pinker and Bloom (1990) argued that this language module, in all its apparent complexity, could not have arisen by any other means than via natural selection – as did the eye and many other complex biological systems. Whilst I agree with the sentiment that natural selection, and more broadly, evolution, is a vital tool in discerning the origins of language, I think Pinker & Bloom initially overlooked the significance of cultural evolutionary and developmental processes. If anything, I think the debate surrounding UG has held back the field in some instances, even if some of the more intellectually vibrant research emerged as a product of arguing against its existence. This is not to say I don’t think our capacity for language has been honed via natural selection. It was probably a very powerful pressure in shaping the evolutionary trajectory of our cognitive capacities. What you won’t find, however, is a strongly constrained language acquisition device dedicated to the processing of arbitrary, domain-specific linguistic properties, such as X-bar theory and case marking.

Babel’s Dawn Turns Four. In the two and half years I’ve been reading Babel’s Dawn it has served as a port for informative articles, some fascinating ideas and, lest we forget, some great writing on the evolution of language. Edmund Blair Bolles highlights the blog’s fourth anniversary by referring to another, very important, birthday:

This blog’s fourth anniversary has rolled around. More notably, the 20th anniversary of Steven Pinker and Paul Bloom‘s famous paper, “Natural Language and Natural Selection,” seems to be upon us. Like it or quarrel with it, Pinker-Bloom broke the dam that had barricaded serious inquiry since 1866 when the Paris Linguistic Society banned all papers on language’s beginnings. The Journal of Evolutionary Psychology is marking the Pinker-Bloom anniversary by devoting its December issue to the evolution of language. The introductory editorial, by Thomas Scott-Phillips, summarizes language origins in terms of interest to the evolutionary psychologist, making the editorial a handy guide to the differences between evolutionary psychology and evolutionary linguistics.

Hopefully I’ll have a post on Pinker and Bloom’s original paper, and how the field has developed over these last twenty years, at some point in the next couple of weeks. I think it’s historical importance will, to echo Bolles, be its value in opening up the field: with the questions of language origins and evolution turning into something worthy of serious intellectual investigation.

Other Links

Hypnosis reaches the parts brain scans and neurosurgery cannot.

Are Humans Still Evolving? (Part Two is here).

The Limits of Science.

On Language — Learning Language in Chunks.

Farmers, foragers, and us.

Tweet This.

On Music and The Brain.

Why I spoofed science journalism, and how to fix in.

The adaptive space of complexity.

Poster Venn Diagram

Last week I presented an academic poster over at Edinburgh. Even though I’d argue it was reasonably successful, getting lots of good feedback and some useful recommendations, I still think it could have benefited from being trimmed down to highlight the main points. I’ve uploaded it to Scribd so you can see for yourself:
Phoneme Demography Poster

Since presenting I’ve come across this insanely useful poster Venn Diagram (H/T: John Hawks):

Now try and spot which aspects I didn’t cater for in my poster (hint: direct your eyes toward the right).

Under the Influence: An overview of recent insights into the CNTNAP2 gene

In my last post I outlined a number of experimental studies using the Zebra Finch that have highlighted an additional dimension to the FoxP2 gene – not only is it upregulated in the avian brain throughout song development, but it is also downregulated in important song nuclei of adult birds in singing contexts that seem to involve ‘listening to one’s own song’ and subsequent error correction.  Given that the pattern of expression of this gene is very similar in the developing brain of both humans and birds, one conclusion that has been drawn from this research is that FOXP2 downregulation may equivocally serve to facilitate online language processing function in the adult human brain.

General background on an intriguing new celebrity

Naturally, the next step has been to try and identify the downstream genes regulated by FOXP2 in order to build up a more detailed picture of how interactions between complex genetic networks influence key language-related disorders in humans.   It is as a result of such efforts that another gene, although discovered almost a decade ago, has found its way into the spotlight: CNTNAP2.

In the developing human brain, CNTNAP2 is enriched in functionally specialised regions such as the frontal cortex, the stratium, and the dorsal thalamus (circuits within these regions are referred to as cortico-striato-thalmic circuits) central to executive function, planning and executing complex sequential movements, and thus potentially, language.  This presents a striking contrast to the more uniform expression of Cntnap2 observed in the developing rodent brain where there is no evidence for enrichment in specific regions, suggesting a functional difference in the human version that could be related to vocal learning and modification.

Continue reading “Under the Influence: An overview of recent insights into the CNTNAP2 gene”

What can Hungarian Postpositions tell us about Language Evolution?

I spent quite a lot of time as an undergraduate analysing Hungarian syntax with my generative head on and using the minimalist framework. Bear with me. This post is the result of me trying to marry all of them hours spent reading “The Minimalist Program” (Chomsky, 1995) and starring at Hungarian with what I’m currently doing¹ and ultimately trying to convince myself that I wasn’t wasting time.

So here’s a condensed summary of what my dissertation was about:

Hungarian has a massive case system which, as well as structural cases, has many items which have locational, instrumental and relational uses (lexical case markers). Because of this many constructions which feature prepositions in English, when translated into Hungarian can be translated as case markers or postpositions.

It struck me as odd that these 2 things; case markers and postpositions, despite having the same position in the structure (as a right-headed modifier to the noun) and very similar semantic function, would have different analyses in the syntactic framework, simply due to the fact that one was morphologically attached (case markers) and the other not (postpositions).

Continue reading “What can Hungarian Postpositions tell us about Language Evolution?”

That’s Linguistics (Not logistics)


Linguists really need a catchy tune to match those in logistics. Any takers?

I always remember when one of my former lecturers said he was surprised by how little the average person will know about linguistics. For me, this was best exemplified when, upon enquiring about my degree, my friend paused for a brief moment and said: “Linguistics. That’s like logistics, right?” Indeed. Not really being in the mood to bash my friend’s ignorance into a bloody pulp of understanding, I decided to take a swig of my beer and simply replied: “No, not really. But it doesn’t matter.” Feeling guilty for not gathering the entire congregation of party-goers, sitting them down and proceeding to explain the fundamentals of linguistics, I have instead decided to write a series of 101 posts.

With that said, a good place to start is by providing some dictionary definitions highlighting the difference between linguistics and logistics:

Linguistics /lɪŋˈgwɪs.tɪks/ noun

the systematic study of the structure and development of language in general or of particular languages.

Logistics /ləˈdʒɪs.tɪks/ plural noun

the careful organization of a complicated activity so that it happens in a successful and effective way.

Arguably, linguistics is a logistical solution for successfully, and rigorously, studying language through the scientific method, but to avoid further confusion this is the last time you’ll see logistics in these posts. So, as you can probably infer, linguistics is a fairly broad term that, for all intensive purposes, simply means it’s a discipline for studying language. Those who partake in the study of language are known as linguists. This leads me to another point of contention: a linguist isn’t synonymous with a polyglot. Although there are plenty of linguists who do speak more than one language, many of them are quite content just sticking to their native language. It is, after all, possible for linguists to study many aspects of a language without necessarily having anything like native-level competency. In fact, other than occasionally shouting pourquoi when (drunkly) reflecting on my life choices, or ach-y-fi when a Brussels sprout somehow manages to make its way near my plate, I’m mainly monolingual.

Continue reading “That’s Linguistics (Not logistics)”

Matt Ridley’s contractual silence

This morning I just received my copy of Matt Ridley’s latest book, The Rational Optimist: How prosperity evolves. I must admit that, despite being a big fan of Ridley’s writings, I found myself somewhat disillusioned since his role in the subprime mortgage crisis at Northern Rock. In particular, I was always confused as to why Ridley never defended himself against scathing attacks from the likes of George Monbiot. Maybe it was an admission of guilt? Perhaps. But I now have a somewhat more satisfying explanation for the silence:

I am writing in times of unprecedented economic pessimism. The world banking system has lurched to the brink of collapse; an enormous bubble of debt has burst; world trade has contracted; unemployment is rising sharply all around the world as output falls. The immediate future looks bleak indeed, and some governments are planning further enormous public debt expansions that could hurt the next generation’s ability to prosper. To my intense regret I played a part in one phase of this disaster as non-executive chairman of Northern Rock, one of many banks that ran short of liquidity during the crisis. This is not a book about that experience (under terms of my employment there I am not at liberty to write about it). [my emphasis].

So there you have it: a contractual obligation to keep schtum. It’s a shame, really, as I would hate to be in a position where I am not even given the opportunity to defend my position, especially on a topic that generated a massive amount of news and speculation.

As for the book: so far, so good. It’s also a lot larger than I expected. I do have some minor quibbles, but they can wait until I write a more thorough review.

Futurama Supports Cultural Evolution

A recent episode of Futurama – ‘A clockwork Origin‘ – sees the Professor go head to head with Creationists, and makes a good point about the difference between Creationism and Evolution.

After his work on the origin of man is mocked, the Professor decides to leave Earth for a desolate planet. However, the nano-bots which he designs to purify the water evolve overnight into a full-scale ecosystem, complete with robo-dinosaurs that are eventually wiped out by a solar flare.

At first, the Professor is unwilling to see the change in the robots as Evolution, saying ‘Those robots didn’t evolve by themselves, I put them there – I’m a genius, get over it’. However, after the crew is captured by robo-anthropologists (anthrobopologists?), he’s forced to admit that they really have Evolved. Further, he’s forced to admit that he has no problem with the idea of a creator playing a small part in the origins of Humans, just as he started the race of robots.

This is all good news for those studying Cultural Evolution – people are coming round to the idea that Evolution is an abstract process rather than the theory of how humans evolved from apes.  Perhaps us researchers will be spared in the robot uprising, which is sure to come:  As Bender says “Robots do everything faster, including evolving”.