Language evolution seminar

Speaker: Pedro Tiago Martins (Universitat de Barcelona/UBICS)

Title: All-or-nothing Tells us Little About Language Evolution

Abstract: Language is a biological capacity unique to humans. A major topic of research, especially in recent years, is understanding how this capacity evolved. A prominent hypothesis posits that language has at its core a particular computational operation, which emerged suddenly, as the result of single mutation. The justification for this evolutionary scenario is that this capacity is either present or absent, with no intermediate steps, and as such it could not have evolved through intermediate evolutionary steps. In this talk I will offer a critical look at theories of this kind, arguing that this “all-or-nothing” conception of the evolution of language in general and some of its subcomponents in particular is not productive. Vocal learning will be given special attention as one such case of a sub-component of language which benefits from a more permissive, non-dichotomical view regarding its biological nature and evolution.

Contact

Seminars are organised by the Centre for Language Evolution

Andres Karjus

Centre for Language Evolution