Language I:Origins and Foundations of Language Flashcards
Language Definition?
A system using sounds and symbols that enables us to express our feelings, thoughts, ideas, and experinces
Language is hierarchical?
Basic components combine to form larger structures
Phonemes: Smallest possible sound component
Morphemes: Smallest possible meaniningful component
Prosody: Pitch and rhythm
Language is rule-based?
Syntactic rules (grammatical and phonological)
Language is Universal?
More than 5000 languages
All human cultures have language
Deaf children spontaneously invent sign language
Language is Exclusive?
- Humans are the only species to have language
- Chimpanzees can memorize a few hundred symbols, but no syntax
- Birds can vocalize more complex than humans, but meaning is constrained to specific calls
Where Does the Human Advantage Come From? French Physician Paul Broca published many observations…
- Patient that could only say “Tan”
- Showed damage to left frontal cortex caused language deficits
- Suggested the left cortex ‘does all the talking
“Broca’s area”
(Marc Dax published many similar observations 25 years earlier)
Where Does the Human Advantage Come From? Human brain is asymmetrical; left is bigger…
- Left brain damage in birds reduces song features 90%, while right brain damage reduces 10%
Big left hemisphere = more language?
No, same asymmetry in non-linguistic species
- Non-human primates and pre-linguistic species
- Homo heidelbergensis (300-400k years ago) had similarly large brain and similar larynx/vocal apparatus to modern humans
Where Does the Human Advantage Come From? Physical ability
- Speaking requires precise control of breathing and vocal apparatus
- Chimps and other non-human primates do not have the physical ability to vocalize as humans do
- Hypoglossal nerve controls tongue
- Non-human primates have smaller hypoglossal nerve
Hypoglossal nerve
- Exits skull through the hypoglossal canal
- Size of nerve limited by size of canal
- Pre-linguistic humans had same size hypoglossal canal as modern humans
Where did Language Come From?
No evidence of symbolic language use before 80,000 years ago
Definitely used earlier than 40,000 years ago
The earliest evidence of symbolic representation is the “ochre plaque” found in S. Africa (Tattersall, 2004)?
Made ~75,000 years ago
Earliest body decorations (pierced shells) also found in the same place, from same time period
Also earliest evidence of trade and flint mining
Tattersall suggests humans acquired symbolic representation suddenly as a by-product of other process, rather than incremental development?
Clearly, early humans communicated beforehand
Hypoglossal canal size suggests fine vocal control
Maybe pre-linguistic communication involved fine motor control?
Language and Music? + 4 Possibilites
Before symbolic language, humans likely had musical ability, maybe musical communication
Possibilities:
1. Music is an epiphenomenon of language ability
2. Language is an epiphenomenon of music ability
3. “musilanguage” developed first, then became more symbolic over time (Will be on exam)
4. Music and language ability developmentally independent
Support for musilanguage hypothesis?
- Syntax of music is simpler, less rules
- Modern language itself is musical (prosody + rhythm)
- Newborns and infants prefer “baby talk,” respond to prosody before hard linguistic syntax
- Newborns also have preference for rhythm and tone of mother’s language vs. other languages
