Outline:

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Lecture 8 Language III Chomksy, Pinker and so
much more!

• Outline
• More on gestural origins of language
• Monkey see, monkey do cells
• Steven Pinkers The Language Instinct

Readings Chaps 2, 6 and 7 in Christiansen
Kirby (2002) Chap 15 in Corballis and Lea (2000)
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Gestures and spoken language Corballis (2002
2003)

• bodily gestures are important in language
  development
• vision is important in language development

• vocalisations in many species seem lateralised
• Maybe oral language came after a manual
  protolanguage developed in early species of
  Homoand came quite late (170,000 y.a.?)
• early vocalisations as punctuation, helping
  identify subject v object, etc.
• And human right handedness is a bi-product of
  the gradual integration of lateralised oral
  production and cortical control of gesture
  production and comprehension

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Mirror neurons (or monkey see, monkey do cells)

• described by Gallese and Rizzolatti in 1996
• found in an area of premotor cortex (in the
  frontal lobe) called F5
• many people have leapt on the idea that F5 is
  roughly equivalent to Brocas area in humans (BA
  44/45)
• these neurons are largely concerned with manual
  actions that seem to have some intentional
  component to them (i.e. reaching and grasping
  tearing holding)
• they respond to the sight of another agent
  performing the same action or when the monkey
  itself performs the action

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Mirror neurons (or monkey see, monkey do cells)

• they are cortical rather than subcortical
• claim some correlation of BA44 size with hand use
  (Hopkins Cantalupo 2003)
• suggestions that we have a mirror neuron system
  too I.e. observing actions activates frontal
  cortex, potentiates motor evoked potentials etc.

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Mirror neurons (or monkey see, monkey do cells)
Cantalupo Hopkins (2003). Asymmetric Brocas
area in great apes. Nature, 414, 505.
Brodmanns area 44 larger on left than right in a
sample of 27 great ape brains
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Mirror neurons (or monkey see, monkey do cells)
G. Rizzolatti M.A. Arbib (1998), Language
within our grasp. Trends in Neuroscience 21,
188-194. argue that mirror neurons could
instantiate an elementary grammar
The discovery of mirror neurons itself is
clearly important-neurons in F5 provide a
substrate for integrating perceptual processing
with motor activity, thereby potentially making
manual tasks subject to joint attention among
different indivduals. Nevertheless, using the
phenomena as a pillar of language evolution is
taking a long step beyond the data, where simpler
explanations are also availableUnfortunately,
speculation seems particularly prone to run
roughshod over available data when language
evolution becomes the topic of discussion Dale
, Richardson Owren (2003)
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The gestural theory of language Corballis (2002)

• from Dickins (2003)
• If largely innate vocalisations (tied to emotion)
  are left lateralised (subcortically) and
• If oral language gradually evolved from a system
  of manual gestures and
• If the mirror neurons are important for producing
  and perceiving gestures and
• When F5 becomes left lateralised vocal language
  then takes over from gesture then
• This lateralisation drives human right handedness

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It sounds plausible enough. All you have to do is
look around to see how much hand-waving still
accompanies human communication today even
people on cell phones do it. But Mr. Corballis
has yet to convince many linguists of the
theory's merits. "He's not a linguist, and I
think he doesn't appreciate the sophistication of
grammatical organization," said Ray Jackendoff, a
professor of linguistics at Brandeis University.
"I never saw any reason one way or the other to
say that language started gesturally rather than
vocally. If it started in the gestural modality,
you still have to explain how in switching to
that vocal modality there's this terrific
adaptation." Here, of course, the fossil record
is of little help. As Mr. Jackendoff put it "The
problem of talking about the evolution of
language in any detail is that there is no
evidence. It's pure speculation." From The
New York Times 05/18/2002
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The gestural theory of language problems with
Corballis (2002)
1. Right-handedness may have been around for 1.4
1.9 million years (Toth, 1985). MC sayswell
maybe some assoc between hand and vocal gesture
was present in early H., but gesture probably
dominated 2. How right handed are the great
apes? MC makes much of Hopkins only 2/3rds of
captive chimps and 2/3rds of gorillas being
right-handed MC says more data is needed but
that this is important for his argument 3.
Anthropologists argue that vocal behaviours in
chimps are quite complex and that their manual
gesturing is quite limited (Arcadi commentary
2003) MC says animal vocalisations are an
unlikely platform for speecha more sympathetic
medium was needed..if you wanted to build a
language in the common chimp-human ancestor,
youd start with gestures (2003, pp. R2).
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The gestural theory of language problems with
Corballis (2002)
4. Hunter-gatherers tend to use gestures rather
infrequently when hunting
From "Michael Corballis" ltmcorballis_at_psynov1.auck
land.ac.nzgt To "Dr. David Carey"
ltd.carey_at_abdn.ac.ukgt Subject Re Annett
book Date sent Mon, 8 Dec 2003 135713
1300 Send reply to m.corballis_at_auckland.ac.nz
Actually, I don't know that criticism--or have
perhaps repressed it. I think I cited someone, I
think Andy Whiten, to the effect that
hunter-gatherer societies do use gesture while
hunting so as not to alert their prey. Andy (at
St Andrews) would be a good person to ask
anyway. On 7 Dec 2003 at 1651, Dr. David Carey
wrote gt Hi Michael gt gt did I dream that
someone has critiqued your gestural theory by
noting that in many HG societies when the men
hunt, there isn't much gesturing? gt gt I can't
seem to find it in the commentaries of your BBS
article so I suspect you raise it in a footnote
in a book---- gt do you and where might I find
it? gt gt Or care to comment in any case? I don't
think its much of a criticism really--if you
observe small groups which have a history if
hunting together the coordination is probably
pretty well established. Else anthropologists
didn't necessarily observe any gestures -- they
would be subtle, directed and of course silent
if they were necessary. gt gt dpc
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The gestural theory of language problems with
Corballis (2002)
5. Mirror neurons seem tailor-made for imitation
yet monkeys (at least) are rotten imitators
(remember monkeys arent chimps) MC says maybe
key elements but not sufficient 6. F5 may
actually have auditory/vocal function after all,
and their may be auditory mirror neurons as well
as visual ones (Jurgens, 2003) MC says these
latter have to do with the sounds of action and
not of speech 7. Primates are very vocal, isnt
it more parsimonious to argue that language
evolved from meaningful vocalisations (e.g.
Holloway, 2003)?
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The gestural theory of language Corballis (2002)
The strong predominance of right-handedness
appears to be a uniquely human characteristic,
whereas the left-cerebral dominance for
vocalization occurs in many species, including
frogs, birds, and mammals. Right-handedness may
have arisen because of an association between
manual gestures and vocalization in the evolution
of language. I argue that language evolved from
manual gestures, gradually incorporating vocal
elements. The transition may be traced through
changes in the function of Brocas area. Its
homologue in monkeys has nothing to do with vocal
control, but contains the so-called mirror
neurons, the code for both the production of
manual reaching movements and the perception of
the same movements performed by others. This
system is bilateral in monkeys, but predominantly
left-hemispheric in humans, and in humans is
involved with vocalization as well as manual
actions. There is evidence that Brocas area is
enlarged on the left side in Homo habilis,
suggesting that a link between gesture and
vocalization may go back at least two million
years, although other evidence suggests that
speech may not have become fully autonomous until
Homo sapiens appeared some 170,000 years ago, or
perhaps even later.
Corballis (2003) BBS Target article
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Noam Chomskys Universal Grammar I
ultra famous linguist, loved by coggies for his
role in fighting the demon behaviourism
argues for a Universal grammar shared by all
human languages different languages are the
result of a child learning to assign binary
values (i.e. 1 or 2, yes or no) to a relatively
small number of parameters i.e. does the verb
come before the object in this language or after
it? syntax is key to UG the specific lexicon is
not so important and quite independent
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Noam Chomskys Universal Grammar II
to the learning child, the standard English
sentence, The dog chased the ball, is a
template telling the child to put verbs like
chased before objects like the
ball. therefore UG module flips a switch to
pattern the childs own utterances accordingly UG
idea is very much centred on childrens rapid
acquisition (what Pinker calls All Hell Breaks
Lose stage Pinker 1994) bizarrely, Chomsky and
many of his critics agree on one thing language
is just too complex to have evolved in a
piecemeal fashion by Darwinian natural
selection in fact the eminent naturalist Stephen
Jay Gould agrees (although he is more sympathetic
to evolutionary mechanismshe just thinks it
couldnt have happened through gradual change)
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Steven Pinkers The Language Instinct I
quite famous coggie, writes popular books with
some panache Canadian!
relatively sympathetic to Chomskys views except
more hard core on biology and evolution notes
that commonsensical notions of agrammaticality
in current usage are mostly grumbles about how
one ought to talk i.e. dont split infinitives
etc. i.e. goes through examples of
uninteresting linguistic properties of BEV
(Black Equivalent English)
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Steven Pinkers The Language Instinct II
1. Language acquisition must be hard wired a.
Children just dont repeat what they hear Daddy
go He hitted meNo eat cake! b. Parents
rarely correct syntax or word errors in young
children yet they seem to learn anyway Mama,
mama, there's a tree-knocker in the back yard!
It's raining, where is the underbrella? c.
Language acquisition is uncorrelated with g d.
15-20 new words a day by age 5? By age 6 a
vocabulary of 10,000 words! e. Children make
regularisation errors such as I runned home from
my friends house or Mummy my feets are sore.
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Steven Pinkers The Language Instinct III
2. Behaviorist accounts of learning a language
just cant work i.e. word chainscould children
just learn (through reinforcement) a large number
of rules about what kinds of words are allowed to
follow other words?
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Steven Pinkers The Language Instinct IV
3. There is no single framework underlying all
sentence structures into which verbs can just be
plugged Instead, four basic features of all
languages a. Phrase structure rules (like the
syntax tree on the next slide) b. Long range
dependency rules (which elements are allowed to
move to which place in the sentence as phrases
are added - where to put the or after an
earlier either) c. Closed-class elements (i.e.
morphemes ed, -ing) that specify tense, case,
gender, negation d. Lexical categories (nouns,
verbs, prepositions)
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Steven Pinkers The Language Instinct V
4. Thought and language are actually independent
of one another Pinker thinks language is rotten
for representation (in the cognitive sense) a.
Language is ambiguous while thought is not Stud
Tires Out or Drunk gets nine months in violin
case b. Language is not logically explicit.
Ralph is an elephant. Elephants live in Africa.
Elephants have tusks. You know Ralph has his own
tusks while all elephants live in Africa, but
that information is nowhere in the statements.
c. Context effects in language. Basic idea is
that language is slow and cumbersome compared to
thought and full of ambiguities. Yet listeners
make sensible inferences and usually get the
messages right.
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Steven Pinkers The Language Instinct VI
4. Thought and language are actually independent
of one another Language and thought share some
properties but in some ways thought is richer and
in others simpler, than language. You know
multiple meanings for single words (richer) but
information about pronounciation etc and entities
like function words (a, the, etc) seem absent
from thoughts (poorer). Nonverbal thinking such
as visual and motor imagery, mental rotation
etc.
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Steven Pinkers The Language Instinct VII
4. Thought and language are actually independent
of one another Now, it could be that English
speakers think in some kind of simplified
quasi-English, with the design I have just
described, and that Apache speakers think in a
simplified and annotated quasi-Apache. But to get
these languages of thought to subserve reasoning
properly, they would have to look much more like
each other than either one does to its spoken
counterpart, and it is likely that they are the
same a universal mentalese. Pinker (1994
pg. 82).
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Steven Pinkers The Language Instinct VIII
5. Language has evolved by natural selection (but
there are genuine problems in reconstructing how
it might have happened) for example, unlike a
better visual system, how would some
proto-linguistic communication system that
evolved due to a mutation in an individual be of
any use to that individuals fitness? and could
it have evolved all at once? As improbable as
hurricanes by chance assembling a jetliner from
a scrapyard containing the aircraft spare parts
(Hoyle, discussed by Richard Dawkins)??
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Steven Pinkers The Language Instinct IX
5. Language has evolved by natural selection (but
there are genuine problems in reconstructing how
it might have happened) we see no intermediate
forms of proto-languages in other existing
species Pinker answers There were plenty of
organisms with intermediate language abilities
but they are all dead. (1994 pg.
346) Language is overkill How does recursion
help in the hunt for Mastodons? Pinker answers
is a far off region reached by taking the right
turn before the large tree or the trail that the
large tree is in front of? (in Pinker and
Bloom, 1990 cited in Pinker 2004 in C K book
Language Evolution)
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Steven Pinkers The Language Instinct X
imagine what would happen if some elephants
were biologists. Obsessed with the unique place
of the trunk in nature, they might ask how it
could have evolved, given that no other organism
has a trunk or anything like it. One school might
think of ways to narrow the gap. They would first
point out that the elephant and the hyrax share
about 90 of their DNA and thus could not be all
that different. They might say that the trunk
must not be as complex as everyone thought
perhaps the number of muscles had been
miscounted. They might further note that the
hyrax really does have a trunk, but somehow it
has been overlooked after all, the hyrax does
have nostrils. Though their attempts to train
hyraxes to pick up objects with their nostrils
have failed, some might trumpet their success at
training hyraxes to push toothpicks around with
their tongues, noting that stacking tree trunks
or drawing on blackboards differ from it only in
degree. (contd)
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Steven Pinkers The Language Instinct XII
The opposite school, maintaining the uniqueness
of the trunk, might insist that it appeared all
at once in the offspring of a particular
trunkless elephant ancestor, the product of a
single dramatic mutation. Or they might say that
the trunk somehow arose as an automatic
by-product of the elephants having evolved a
large head. They might add another paradox for
trunk evolution the trunk is absurdly more
intricate and well coordinated than any ancestral
elephant would have needed. Pinker (1994)
pg. 333.
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Steven Pinkers The Language Instinct XIII
Some problems/arguments with Pinker a. Many
linguists think that he (and Chomsky) is too
dismissive of differences in existing
languages b. He may be too dismissive of evidence
that shows how language does influence how people
think c. Language is not an instinct like a
spider spinning its web 1. its not stereotyped
(??) and 2 it would not appear in the absence of
the proper environment. Rather humans are
biologically prepared for language acquisition
in several, semi-independent ways d.
Species-universality does not imply
language-specific genes (all humans eat with
their hands, but we doubt we have an eating with
hands gene) e. A few languages dont fit well
with the phrase structure rules pushed by Pinker
(Dyribal, an Australian language and Lakhota, an
American language). Ditto for some of his other
rules.
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Next lecture Lecture 9 Language IV Language
evolution Chap 2, 6 in Christiansen Kirby
(2002) Hauser, Chomsky Fitch (2002) Pinker
and Jackendorf (2005)