Year: 2022

The splendid Spanish tortilla. View in LinkedIn

FRAGMENT FROM NATURE for this and next weekend deals with the challenging topic of the evolution of language. One paper creates a linguistic computer model that reveals grammatical clues; the other looks at comparative anatomy and genetics. Leaving no fossil clues, reconstructing this is difficult. Linguistic deficits in patients, comparative anatomy, and genetic studies provide clues to the evolution of language. View in LinkedIn

THE WHY. “My own brain is to me the most unaccountable of machinery — always buzzing, humming, soaring roaring diving, and then buried in mud. And why? What’s this passion for?” (Virginia Woolf). https://lnkd.in/d58kyzRB View in LinkedIn

SALTATION. “The emergence of language was a defining moment in the evolution of modern humans. It was an innovation that changed radically the character of human society.” https://lnkd.in/d_bJcG9t View in LinkedIn

MUDDY ORIGINS. “For many years the evolution of language has been seen as a disreputable topic, mired in fanciful ‘‘just so stories’’ about language origins.” https://lnkd.in/dTkGwcGB View in LinkedIn

SMALL LEXICON KEY. “We model the probability of misunderstanding a signal and show that this limits the number of objects that can be described by a protolanguage. This “error limit” is not overcome by employing more sounds but by combining a small set of more easily distinguishable sounds into words.” https://lnkd.in/d_bJcG9t View in LinkedIn

UNLIMITED COMBINATIONS. “The process of “word formation” enables a language to encode an essentially unlimited number of objects.” https://lnkd.in/d_bJcG9t View in LinkedIn

GRAMMAR PROOFREADING. “We argue that grammar originated as a simplified rule system that evolved by natural selection to reduce mistakes in communication. Our theory provides a systematic approach for thinking about the origin and evolution of human language.” https://lnkd.in/d_bJcG9t View in LinkedIn

SOCIALLY DRIVEN. “Increasing sociality provided the central usefulness for language in the first place and drove its evolution.” https://lnkd.in/dTkGwcGB View in LinkedIn