Vaneechoutte,
M. and Skoyles, J.R., 1998;
The memetic origin of language: modern humans as musical primates.
Journal of Memetics
- Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission, 2 (link no longer
functional).
The memetic origin of language:
modern humans as musical primates
Mario VaneechoutteDepartment of Clinical Chemistry, Microbiology & Immunology,
Blok A, University Hospital, B 9000 Ghent, Belgium
6 Denning Road, Hampstead,
London NW3 1SU. UK
Up from dragons. The evolution of intelligence: http://www.upfromdragons.com/
1.1. Memetics and the origin of language
1.2. The evolution of information and language
1.3. The major questions about language
2.2. Evolution of mental semantics and mental
syntax (the first two competencies)
2.2.1. Mental representation and semantic
ability
3. Problems with Chomsky, Pinker and Deacon
3.1. Noam Chomsky: Is there a universal grammar?
3.2.3. Individual vs group fitness
3.2.5. Does better speech production
really brings along a higher social status?
3.2.6. Does higher social status ensure
reproductive success?
4. Phylogenetic origins of spoken language
4.2.1. Humans have unique adaptations for
singing
4.2.2. Musical primates and song birds:
examples of convergent evolution?
4.3. Present and past social music
4.3.2. Music and group identity
5. Melody and language learning by children
5.1. Introduction: the semantics of spoken syntax
5.2. Music and language development
6.3. Why has the musical origin of language
hypothesis been overlooked?
6.4. Could large vocabularies alone be sufficient
for the development of syntax?
6.5. Musicality may also explain other typically
human characteristics
Abstract
Song (musicality, singing
capacity), we argue, underlies both the evolutionary origin of human language
and its development during early childhood. Specifically, we propose that
language acquisition depends upon a Music Acquiring Device (MAD) which has been
doubled into a Language Acquiring Device (LAD) through memetic evolution. Thus,
in opposition to the currently most prominent language origin hypotheses
(Pinker, S. 1994. The Language Instinct, W. Morrow, N.Y.; Deacon, T.W. 1997.
The Symbolic Species, W.W. Norton, N.Y.), we contend that language itself was
not the underlying selective force which lead to better speaking individuals
through natural selection. Instead we suggest that language emerged from the
combination of (i) natural selection for increasingly better mental
representation abilities during animal evolution (thinking, mental syntax) and
(ii) natural selection during recent human evolution for the human ability to
sing, and finally (iii) memetic selection that only recently (within the
last 100,000 years) reused these priorly evolved abilities to create
language. Thus, speech - the use of symbolic sounds linked grammatically - is
suggested to be largely a cultural phenomenon, linked to the Upper Palaeolithic
revolution. The ability to sing provided the physical apparatus and neural
respirational control that is now used by speech. The ability to acquire song
became the means by which children are able to link animal mental syntax with
syntax of spoken language. Several studies strongly indicate that this is
achieved by children through a melody-based recognition of intonation, pitch,
and melody sequencing and phrasing. Language, we thus conjecture, owes its
existence not to innate language learning competencies, but to innate
music-associated ones, which - unlike the competencies hypothesized for
language - can be straightforwardly explained to have evolved by natural
selection.
The question on the origin
of language then becomes the question on the origin of song in modern humans or
early Homo sapiens. At present our ability to sing is unexplained. We
hypothesize that song capacity evolved as a means to establish and maintain
pair- and group-bonding. Indeed, several convergent examples exist (tropical
song birds, whales and porpoises, wolves, gibbons) where song was naturally
selected with regard to its capacities for reinforcing social bonds.
Anthropologists find song has this function also amongst all human societies.
In conclusion, the ability
to sing not only may explain how we came to speak, but may also be a partial
answer to some of the very specific sexual and social characteristics so
typical for our species and so essential in understanding our recent evolution.
Keywords: origin, human,
language, natural selection, cultural evolution, music, intonation, rhythm,
song, children
1. Introduction
1.1. Memetics and the origin of language
A major topic of memetics
is the transmission of information by words. Thus better knowledge about the
origins of language could throw light on many of the issues that are presently
debated in memetics. Understanding what language is about is also important
because it can be put that language is the only essential difference between
human and animal existence, a difference which enables to explain most or all
of the features characteristic for human psychology and human behaviour
(e.g. [92]), which in turn explains why some
memes - which we define broadly as bits of behaviourally transmissible
information [Note 1] - are spread more successfully
than others [Note 2].
Finally, memetic selection
tends to get ignored by theories seeking to explain the origins of language.
Most prominent theories instead argue for a gene- rather than meme-based
origin. Some, for example, conjecture that language arose from Darwinian,
adaptationist selection processes by which better speakers had greater
reproductive success (Pinker [67], Smith and Szathmary [83]). Also Deacon [21] relies on genes (genetic assimilation of
phenotypic characteristics (Baldwinian evolution)) and long term evolution to
explain how language could arise, although memes (i.e. the use of symbols)
already play an important role in this Baldwinian evolution. To the opposite,
the memetic selection hypothesis defended here assumes that all preadaptations
for language production and language understanding were naturally selected for
other reasons than language, wherefrom language emerged and evolved rapidly and
only recently by a process of cultural evolution. Thus, we do not reject
natural selection - indeed, our approach largely depends upon it - but we try
to understand how and when cultural/memetic selection comes into play and
eventually takes over. The emergence of language in a human community by
interaction between humans and symbols is not specifically addressed here, but
will be the issue of a forthcoming paper [82].
1.2. The evolution of information and language
Informationally, `life' can
be considered as a giant chemical process which took off some 4 billion years
ago - with the origin of the first self-replicating cell (also see [Note 2]). For instance, the product of one enzyme can
be used as the substrate for other enzymes, cells interact by means of
hormones, humors and neurotransmitters and multicellular colonies do so by
means of pheromones and scent molecules. And across these organisational
levels, the interactions between enzymes enable cells to interact by means of
hormones, humours and neurotransmitters, while the cellular interactions enable
multicellular colonies to interact by means of pheromones and scent molecules.
When brain (and eye and
ear) possessing animals arose, a new manner of information transmission was
introduced into biology. Now, living creatures could exchange information in a
nonchemical manner through sound and sight, which increased the speed and the
flexibility of informing each other and of influencing each others behaviours
or of adapting one's behaviour to the cues provided by others, i.e. behavioural
instead of chemical interaction. One of the characteristics of such information
is that it is `inherited' in a nongenetic manner [35, 93]. One easily imagines how it is
impossible to inherit rules for complex social behaviour genetically while on
the other hand such morals, habits are readily `learned' (rather: assimilated,
absorbed) by young animals, e.g. through (emotional) punishment and reward
(also see [Note 1]).
Dawkins [20] has called these `culturally inherited' bits
of information, `memes'. Their development went hand-in-hand with parallel
evolution of semantic abilities: these signals have to be turned by the brain into
information that can be processed by cells that interact chemically (that is,
by neurons and their information transmission by neurotransmitters). For
example, an alarm cry (auditory cue) has to get linked/recoded by semantic
abilities into the neurological (biochemical) concept or category or mental
representation of `dangerous situation'; this then triggers the various
neurotransmitter- and/or hormone-transmitted cellular interactions that occur
in fright and fear.
Importantly, the alarm cry
is already here functioning as a kind of symbol, since similar sounds or signs
may have a completely different meaning depending on the situation or the
species. The full progress to symbolism in communication - spoken language as
used by humans - requires that further encoding takes place: not only are
symbols (words or signs) linked to mental images (linguistic semantics), but
also word order, affixes, and other morphological
modifications/operations/processes enable the communication of relationships
between representations (linguistic syntax). Of course, the possibilities for
individual thinking and for information transmission between individuals as a
result of symbolic language are increased exponentially again.
1.3. The major questions about language
Two questions exist about
language development and its origins.
- First, `How is it that the complex
phenomenon of spoken language arose in the animal world?'.
- Second: `How is it possible that children
acquire language with such ease irrespective of the language they learn?
We argue that none of the
presently available hypotheses [21, 67] provide final answers to the questions about
the origin of language both during phylogeny of the human kind and during ontogeny
of the individual human being. First, we briefly review the present dominant
approaches.
The present prominent
hypothesis on the phylogenetic origin of language is the natural selection approach.
This claims that speech - and its associated characteristics like voice, and
specialized brain regions and the ability to comprehend syntax of spoken
language - was selected by gradual natural selection of genetic changes, made
possible by the selective advantage of speech itself [66, 67, 83] or was made possible by genetic assimilation [21].
The present prominent
hypothesis on the origin of language during individual ontogeny [16, 17] - a hypothesis taken for granted by
e.g. Pinker [67] and Smith and Szathmary [83] - is that children have a language acquiring
device (LAD), that uses an innate Universal Grammar. Syntax, according to this
view, is acquired by a child by setting a few parameters of the `innate
grammar' according to those in their parents language.
In this paper, we argue, in
opposition to these approaches, first that song production and song
interpretation capacities were the essential, naturally selected,
preadaptations that enabled language, which readily evolved in a cultural
(memetic) manner. In other words, speech preadaptations were naturally selected
but only in regard to singing and not in regard to the later use they came to
have in language. Second, linked to this `song being the preadaptation for
speech' approach, we argue that children learn spoken language by means of
innate melody recognition capacity (Music Acquisition Device or MAD). If
genetic evolution contributed to our abilities to learn language, it was in an
indirect manner by providing us with abilities to sing. Thus, language learning
devices can in fact be considered as memetically adapted song learning ones.
2. Language components
2.1. Four competencies
The capacity to produce and
comprehend spoken information presupposes several cognitive abilities.
2.1.1. Mental semantics
The mind must be able to
make mental images (virtual representations) that represent externally
perceivable objects, agents and situations.
Furthermore, the mind must
be able to semantically link sounds (or visual signals in animal behaviour,
writing or sign-languages) to these mental representations to enable their
communication, i.e., to make sense of them or to convey meaning. These links
are symbolic - that is arbitrary or established by convention. This is
illustrated by the fact that many words exist in different languages for the
same concept or thing. Acordingly, many completely different writing
conventions exist.
2.1.2. Mental syntax
The mind must be able to
establish the relations and interactions between these representations, whereby
some are active or originators (agents, subjects), while others undergo a
change in situation or receive actions (patients, objects).
2.1.3. Vocal flexibility
Spoken language depends on
the vocal dexterity to produce a wide range of consonants, vowels and
intonations.
2.1.4. Linguistic syntax
The mind must be able to
process the word order, syntactic `roles' such as verb, subject and
morphological modifications (syntactic affixes and internal phoneme changes) so
that it can produce and comprehend them when communicating with others.
2.2. Evolution of mental semantics and mental syntax
(the first two competencies)
2.2.1. Mental representation and
semantic ability
The ability to form mental
representations, mental images of the environment and to categorize these
objects does not need explanation in the context of the origin of language. It
is clear that categorization and generalisation is a selectively advantageous
trait to any heterotrophic, multicellular, mobile, brained organism (i.e., to
most animals), since this enables an animal to reduce the reaction time upon
perception. If animals, for example, could not generalize the concept of a
certain species of tree, they would be forced to investigate each tree as to
whether its fruits were edible. It is easily understood how better and better
mental representation or categorization capacities were continuously naturally
selected for throughout animal evolution.
We define semantic skill as
the ability to link visual or auditory stimuli to a mental representation. This
skill is nothing new as animals readily assign meaning to auditory or visual
signals. For example, a dog observing a bell ringing will quickly learn to link
it to the subsequent appearance of food - Pavlovian conditioning. The dog's
brain finds no difficulties in linking an arbitrary sound to an internal
representation of a real or possible event. Such semantic abilities can be
expected to have been selected particularly for auditory and visual signalling
to aid communication between members of a species. Thus, social animals seem
well equipped to acquire and use culturally inherited semantic meanings.
The semantic ability to
link auditory sounds and visual signs to meaning, it should be noted, lies at
the heart of culture, and of memes (see also 1.2). Culture, indeed, can be broadly defined as
the exchange of information by auditory and visual behavioural cues. Thus,
semantic ability enables the existence of behavioural memes (cry x means
danger, sound y means angriness, melody z means affection, ...) that survive as
replicated bits of information with high heritability within learnt culture.
This can be seen in the rules for social behaviour that get culturally,
behaviourally, memetically inherited among social animals from generation to
generation. The composition of memes in an animal culture is often more stable
than the genetic composition of the population. These behaviours are the
forerunners of the symbolic memes
It should be noticed that
linking arbitrary sounds (words) to specific meanings in essence requires no
novel skills: also dogs can learn it. From this it follows that we do not need
to explain any qualitative differences in semantics. All we need to explain is
why humans are so good at this.
2.2.2. Mental syntax
Also we need not explain
the existence of mental syntax in the context of language development: the
expansion in thinking and intelligence by means of increased mental syntactical
abilities is observed throughout vertebrate and invertebrate taxa. Animals
recognize different agents and their interactions and the causal links between
ongoing processes connecting them. We have now plenty of examples of mental
representation possibility and of generalization, categorization and causal
reasoning, i.e. thinking in animals [36, 37, 40, 53]. There is now strong indication that chimps
even succeed in forming mental representations of the knowledge present in the
mind of another subject [Note 3].
Mental syntax offers a
strong selective advantage because it enables animals to predict possible
outcomes of current situations (aided by memory of past events and their
outcomes) and it helps them to make the best choices between different possible
actions.
2.2.3. Conclusion
We conclude that mental
representation and semantics (linking of observable behaviour to a mental
representation or conveying meaning to an observation) on the one hand and mental
syntax (recognition of causal links) on the other hand are two abilities that
were naturally selected for long before humans appeared and long before the
rise of spoken language. Before we explain how vocal flexibility and linguistic
syntax arose, we will briefly summarize why we need other hypotheses than those
proposed by Chomsky [16, 17], Pinker [67] and - to a large extent - Deacon [21].
3. Problems with Chomsky, Pinker and Deacon
3.1. Noam Chomsky: Is there a universal grammar?
Chomsky [16, 17] argues that syntactical skills are
novel to human communication, arising in each variety of human language from
parameters set in an innate Universal Grammar. However, current knowledge does
not provide evidence of something like innate Universal Grammar.
A peculiar feature of human
language is the high degree of diversity in each of its characteristics. For
example, in configurative languages - like Indo-European languages, subject
(S), object (O) and verb (V) can mathematically be ordered in 6 manners.
Although SOV (45%) and SVO (42%) are predominant [1],
five of the six possibilities are used (there are no examples known of OSV*),
by itself a strong indication that almost any conceivable order can be used.
Some languages (like Dutch) also use mixtures of SOV and SVO, dependent on the
hierarchical position of the sentence. Even more curiously, there are nonconfigurative
languages, like Guugu Yimidhirr from N.E. Australia (see also below).
* Remark (130419): examples are known, e.g. Kabardian (Northern
Caucasus). See Kenneally C. 2007. The first word. The search for the origins of
language. Penguin Books, and Deutscher G. 2005. The unfolding of language. An
evolutionary tour of mankinds’ greatest invention. Picador.
Aitchison has reviewed the
difficulties in finding underlying universal rules in grammar of spoken
languages [1].
However, to Chomskyans all
this diversity is an illusion and under the surface all of these languages are
dialects of `earthspeak' - as Pinker [67] puts it. The syntactical
differences are due to different parameter settings given to an innate
Universal Grammar. There is a problem with this answer: the notion of Universal
Grammar, frankly, is philosophical speculation. We refer to Botha [11], Harris [39], Tomasello [89], Allot [3], Bates & Goodman [6] for useful sources underpinning our
skepticism. This nonfactual status of the Universal Grammar hypothesis has been
ignored since Chomskyans have been remarkably successful in promoting the idea
that Universal Grammar is to language what molecules are to chemistry,
gravitation to astronomy or DNA to biology - an established fact.
Not only is `universal
grammar' not universal, it does not even concern many aspects of grammar.
Really `odd' languages exist like Nootka and Mohawk, (two native American
languages), Lisu from Burma and Mam from West-Guatemala. The latter for example
has a rich vocabulary for the action of laying, depending on the position of
laying (on belly, on back, on side), depending upon whether a human or an
animal is laying, upon telling whether one lays sick or drunk, etc.). Some
languages have no gender classes, some two, other three and Sothero even has
six. Furthermore, languages use a limited subset from 757 phones (observed in a
total of 317 languages) very differently. They do so with a varying number of
consonants and vowels from as low as 11 in the case of the Polynesian Mura to
148 in the African !xu or !Kung. Most average between 20 and 35 [52]. This is not explained by Chomskyan theory.
It appears that `Universal
Grammar' is not a scientific fact but a program which for theoretical reasons
assumes that language has a universal core. It is an assumption which
Chomskyans have constantly failed to establish. Chomskyan linguistics, we
further note, is ignored by many linguists. Rather than being the only approach
to grammar - as has been suggested by Pinker [67], it is only one of several. Further, the
people who we might expect to make use of it - that is those seeking to
computerise speech, completely ignore Chomskyan theory. Also many cognitive
psychologists reject it as it fails conspicuously to fit the process by which
syntax is acquired by children [6].
The noncredibility of
`Universal Grammar' leaves us with a hard problem: how could natural selection
have created the diversity we find amongst human languages? Diversity does not
offer the user of any language any advantage. (The only people, we might note,
that gain from it are linguists who can make careers based upon studying
obscure languages).
In the case of phonetics
this is particularly problematic since it is known that infants before nine
months are prepared to hear the phone contrasts present in all languages [27, 86, 90], an ability which is lost once they are
familiar with their own language [4]. What advantage could exist for
such an ability?
This is an unacknowledged
but puzzling anomaly in the evolution of phonology and one can wonder why there
should exist such a variety when only a small subset of phones (roughly one in
twenty to one in forty) are used in any particular language.
In our opinion, this
diversity creates work for phoneticians, but it makes no sense evolutionary,
except in one circumstance: that linguistic evolution was not responsible for
selecting the processes responsible for phone differences but instead coopted
existing diversity to the - phonetically more limited - needs of speech. In
this view, speech evolution limited itself to developing means to use
preexisting information processing senstitivities in the temporal/parietal and
motor cortices.
In fact we know this is the
situation in phonetics: animals as different to us from chinchillas [46] to quails [45] can hear phones. The auditory cortex of
monkeys is as able as that of humans to hear the auditory features which
characterise phones [85]. Neurons in the homologous areas to
Wernicke's area process phonetic parameters such as fundamental frequencies,
voice onset times and place of articulation (for instance, [85]). Phonetics appears to be a case where an
important component of speech was not a direct product of natural selection but
one that came about from a reuse of processes that had been already evolved
much earlier for other reasons.
In conclusion, although we
argue that something like universal mental syntax exists (see 2.1.2), we fail to see how spoken syntax could rely
on a universal linguistic grammar.
3.2. Steven Pinker: Is it plausible to assume that
natural selection for better speech capacities could have happened?
3.2.1 Introduction
Can language be understood
as `an organ', a `language instinct' [67], that was developed by gradual natural
selection in which better speakers had more reproductive success, resulting in
the selective survival of genes encoding for such better language abilities?
Pinker [67] and Pinker & Bloom [66] have suggested that the Chomskyan innate
Universal Grammar arose by natural selection. There are many problems with this
proposal. Bickerton [9], for example, in spite of being
committed to the idea that an innate Universal Grammar arose by natural
selection, felt the problems of this happening were so great that it could only
be explained by a single and extraordinary macromutation, which is clearly
unacceptable to any evolutionary biologist.
The following quote
summarizes how Pinker and Bloom [66] propose that natural selection
could have played a role in the development of language:
"Furthermore,
in a group of communicators competing for attention and sympathies there is a
premium on the ability to engage, interest, and persuade listeners. This in
turn encourages the development of discourse and rhetorical skills and the
pragmatically-relevant grammatical devices that support them. Symons' [87] observation that tribal chiefs are often both
gifted orators and highly polygynous is a splendid prod to any imagination that
cannot conceive of how linguistic skills could make a Darwinian difference."
Below are some of our
objections.
3.2.2. Language genes
Natural selection for
language only works if it can be genetically inherited. However, thus far no
language genes have been reported in spite of intensive searches that have been
made for inherited disorders of language. The case of the family known by the
initials KE with an inherited disorder demonstrates the failure of this search,
paradoxically by the enthusiasm with which this example has been misreported as
an inheritable language disorder. From early on in life members of this family
suffer a devastating neurological dysfunction that requires many of them to
communicate by sign-language. The disorder affects the coordination of
orofacial musculature, both for nonlinguistic uses and for speaking. The syntax
problems of these people are reported as their primary problem by those seeking
a gene specific for language [32, 33, 67]. Still, recent clinical reports
upon this family stress that this claim is false since virtually all aspects of
their expressive language - from syntax to articulation - is found
impaired [30].
However, let us suppose -
for the sake of argument - that specific language abilities are genetically
encoded. Would such genes increase the reproductive success of better speaking
individuals? There are several problems, some of which are addressed below.
3.2.3. Individual vs group fitness
First, the advantages
offered by speech, like more successful hunting, would have benefited all
individuals in a hunter-gathering band of early humans, even those with less
well developed language capacities.
Indeed, better communication
possibilities favour the group (or the species) as a whole and as such it seems
implausible that natural selection, which works on differential reproductive
success of specific genes, could have worked at all. Group selection means here
that reproduction of all genes present in a group is influenced in a similar
manner by newly developed behaviours.
Accordingly, Allott [3] notes:
"However,
in the case of humans there can also be cultural selection, behavioural selection
at the group level, where the patterns of behaviour adopted are not tied to
individual genetic differences."
Although Ridley [70] has convincingly argued that in nature group
selection usually is a much weaker selective force compared to natural
selection, in cases where memetic information transmission plays a role (like
in imitating/learning behaviour) we might understand easily how group selection
could play its role in evolution. Changes in individual behaviour - regardless
whether these changes are genetically encoded or not - can be taken over by
other members of a group. In case this behaviour happens to confer some
selective advantage, every member of the group can quickly profit of this,
regardless the genetic make-up of the individual. Certain groups as a whole
then may be favoured since they acquired some behaviour. Therefore an initial
coincidental link will exist between certain behaviours (memes) and the
collection of genes which happen to be present among the group members with
this behaviour. So, all individuals and genes will be favoured, and this will
obscure natural selection for the gene which possibly led to the successful
behaviour. Moreover, many complex social behaviours do not have a genetic basis
but can originate as coincidental inventions of some individual (see the
example of Japanese macaques below and our remarks on language genes (3.2.2)).
Taken to its extremes,
Pinker's claim that the complexity of language arose as a gradually selected
feature compares to stating that our tool making refinements were a consequence
of genetic selection. As such, people who had a mutant gene which gave them the
possibility to keep a fire burning were reproductively more successful than
those without the gene. A later mutant enabled some to make fire by firestones
and his/her offspring was reproductively more successful than people who did
not possess this genetically encoded capacity, because it is obviously more
advantageous to be able to make your fire yourself whenever you want to. Thus
the gene for making fire with firestones spread in the population and
outcompeted the `keep the fire burning' gene. Of course, the genetic mutants
which could make matches were better off and outcompeted the firestone
firemakers through better reproductive success. But alas, present day mutants
which use lighters are competing out the match using genetic mutants.
The silliness of this
argument is obvious. Still, this is largely what is being claimed by the
gradual natural selection approach of Pinker about the origin of language.
Moreover, it is even far more difficult to explain selection of language this
way than it is to explain tool use (see 3.2.7).
3.2.4. Can language be explained by
assuming better reproductive success of better speakers due to an increase of
social status?
Even in the case of genetic
encoding of cultural phenomena like language, and even in case where
individuals gain a higher social status which results from their socially
highly valued and (for the sake of the argument) genetically encoded cultural
behaviour (but see 3.2.5), this new skill which is first
owned by an individual with a mutant gene or a novel recombination of genes,
must remain hidden to other members of the species. Because of mimicking
capacity, other members will readily copy the art such that the eventual higher
social rank brought by the new trick and which might lead to more successful
reproduction, is readily lost. The mutant parent even must hide this skill for
its own offspring, otherwise both mutant and wild type offspring will take
advantage of it, and again no natural selection will be possible.
The example of the Japanese
macaques who readily adopted washing sand from sweet potatoes as it was first
done by one member of the group is well known (see [Note 1] for remarks on imitation). Whether or not
this single group member had some gene for this behaviour (which we heavily
doubt), the gene could not lead to higher social status as a result of the
behavioural change it introduced, since several group members readily behaved
the same way.
3.2.5. Does better speech production
really bring along a higher social status?
Pinker [67] claims that people with better speech
capacities have more chances to acquire a higher social rank, becoming a tribe
leader or politician, and from this it is inferred that they will have higher
reproductive success leading to spread of genes for better speech.
However, there are several
pitfalls in this line of reasoning. First, one should not confuse current
macrosocial politics - where indeed leadership often has to do more with ones'
public image, which indeed partially depends on ones' linguistic capacities -
with the original small tribe policies. Under these original conditions, being
the leader is often the mere consequence of having a father who was the
previous leader, regardless one's (linguistic) skills. Second, one can question
whether it were especially better speech capacities which led to high social
rank and thus reproductive success. Being a successful hunter, a good parent,
an efficient food gatherer, a socially enjoyable person (which depends not
necessarily on speech capacities), a very aggressive and physically strong male
or a good singer or a sexually attractive partner, are all other and probably
more important reasons of why an individual could be reproductively successful.
Physical attractiveness may even be a more important reason for reproductive
success than social rank in humans (see 3.2.6) and later on we will argue in
favour of the attractiveness of male singers - above male orators - on females
(see 3.2.5). Whatever, it appears that natural
selection will be too weak a force to explain language by the social status it
might provide, since speech happens to be only one of many possible other
factors which determine social status.
Anthropological studies
moreover show that in the small hunter-gatherer bands, the `big man' is not
distinguishable from the other members of the band [25, 26]. To quote Richard Lee upon the
hunter-gatherer !Kung: `None is arrogant, overbearing, boastful, or aloof. In
!Kung terms these traits absolutely disqualify a person as a leader and may
even engender forms of ostracism... Another trait emphatically not found among
traditional camp leaders is a desire for wealth or acquisitiveness... Whatever
their personal influence over group decisions, they never translate this into
more wealth or more leisure time than other group members have' [47]. The kind of social organisation (tribes and
kingdoms) which Pinker has in mind and where speech eventually might have
increased social status, eventually (but doubtfully, see 3.2.6) leading to a minor reproductive advantage,
does only exist since about 10 000 years, well after the origin of language [25, 26].
3.2.6. Does higher social status
ensure reproductive success?
There is strong evidence -
for example from analogy with social animals - that reproductive success is
indeed closely linked to social rank.
However, just in case of
humans - where this link between social status and reproductive success is
needed most to supply natural selection as an explanation for language - it may
not strictly be applied.
Humans, living in
fission-fusion societies with strong pair bonding and with prolonged periods of
absence of the males, appear to be a special case. It has been suggested that
females indeed do prefer partners for life with high social rank, thus ensuring
material advantages for raising offspring, but that they try to choose
physically - genetically attractive partners for sexual reproduction. Strong
evidence for adulterous behaviour of females - at least in original human
tribes - comes from the many highly complicated adaptations of both female and
male reproductive behaviour at the level of oocytes and spermatozoides. For
instance, it has been shown that males produce killer spermatozoides - able to
kill spermatozoides from other males - and that these are produced especially
when there may be suspicion of adulterous behaviour of females (for instance
after long absence of the male). On the other hand, it appears that the female
body can regulate which sperm of different partners is preferentially taken up,
for instance by - subconscious - regulation of orgasmic experience [5].
In conclusion, the high
social rank of a human male not necessarily confers absolute ensurance for better
reproductive success.
3.2.7. The development of language
by natural selection is even more difficult to explain than other cultural
characteristics like tool making
For language the problem
for a natural selection explanation is even more difficult to overcome than it
is for other cultural traits like tool making. Not only producers must be
selected, but at the same time very different mutations - those mutations which
enable understanding of what producers say - have to be selected gradually and
naturally. We have previously pointed to the same bottleneck in the explanation
of behavioural mate recognition systems [93] and this problem for language has been
formulated also by Geschwind [31]. The arguments by Pinker &
Bloom [66] to resolve this paradox, are far
from convincing, and finally they have to rely on the Baldwin effect (see also
Deacon [21]). It appears an odd supposition to state
that better story-tellers will gain high social status, when one has to explain
how `better story understanding' genes have to be selected independently at the
same time.
3.2.8. Summary
In summary, there is as yet
no convincing evidence that language genes exist (see 3.2.2). Second, in cases where behaviours can be
inherited by learning and mimicking, natural selection for individual genes can
be a weaker selective force than group selection, whereby group selection favours
all genes in a social group indifferently. Natural selection can explain the
increase of general abilities: better vision, higher intelligence, better
singing capacities. When it comes to explain how specific, directly observable
and mimickable abilities - like speech and like making tools - can be selected,
group selection becomes important enough to counteract or overwhelm natural
selection, because new findings of individuals will be taken over by others,
whatever their genes (see 3.2.3). For the same reason of
mimickability, it is unlikely that mimickable behaviours will lead to higher
social rank (3.2.4).
Third, trying to explain
how language could be naturally selected by assuming that better speech entails
a higher social status which in turn leads to reproductive success, can be
criticized by showing that speech was (and is) only one of several factors in
determining social status (see 3.2.5), and that it is uncertain that
social status of humans is a guarantee for reproductive success (see 3.2.6). Fourth, it should be noticed that there is
not really a link between being the `leader' of a hunter-gatherer band and
social status or reproductive success (see 3.2.5). The example of Symons [87], adopted by Pinker [67] on the reproductive success of tribal chiefs
(often both gifted orators and highly polygynous) then is not really applicable
to the humans which first developed language. Finally, it is difficult to see
how natural selection for better speech could work, when realizing the
difficulty of selection for better speech understanding to occur simultaneously
(see 3.2.7).
3.3. Terrence W. Deacon: Did language and brain
co-evolve, leading to both a larger brain and better speech capacities?
The hypothesis of
Deacon [21] is well summarized by the following
quote:
"Considering
the incredible extent of vocal abilities in modern humans as compared to any
other mammal, and the intimate relationship between syntax and speech, it
should not surprise us that vocal speech was in continual development for a
significant fraction of human prehistory. The pace of evolutionary change would
hardly suggest that such an unprecedented, well-integrated, and highly
efficient medium could have arisen without a long exposure to the influence of
natural selection. But if the use of speech is as much as 2 million years old,
then it would have been evolving through most of its prehistory in the context
of a somewhat limited vocal capacity. It is during this period that most
predispositions for language processing would have arisen via Baldwinian
evolution. This has very significant implications for the sorts of speech
adaptation that are present in modern humans." (page 358-359).
Here Deacon [21], like Pinker [67], relies on long term (2 million years) gradual
evolution through selective advantage offered by the use of symbols, and he
relies on Baldwinian evolution. It should be noted however that Deacon [21] clearly dismisses the notion of Universal Grammar [16, 17].
For the moment, it will
suffice to say that we claim that our large brains did not expand to enable
language and that language did not cause brain expansion. For example,
microcephalics [77] and individuals with only half the
brain of normal humans and so with brain masses within the upper limit of
nonhuman primates - can learn normal speech [81]. It might help, but you do not need a large
human brain to be able to speak. Furthermore, the archaeological evidence
indicates a late orgin for language [58]. For further comments on Deacon,
see 6.2.
3.4. Conclusion
We have summarized some
possible criticisms on the most reknown hypotheses on the origin of language
and we have indicated why we have difficulties in accepting the existence of
some kind of Chomskyan `universal grammar' (except for some basic mental syntax
which we share with animals (see 2.2.2)) and why a genetic explanation,
adaptationist [67] or assimilative [21] seems implausible to us. There are several
other criticisms possible [3, 82, 89].
Still, this denial of a
direct role of natural selection in the origin of speech and the arguments in
favour of a cultural evolution process to understand the origin of language do
not supply us with the concrete genetic preadaptations we need to understand
how both production of symbolic sounds (vocal flexibility) and giving
structural value to words in sentences (linguistic syntax) have been achieved.
We will try to answer the
first question on vocal flexibility largely by evolutionary considerations
about the phylogenetic origin of language (section 4), while the second question will be approached
in an attempt to understand how infants acquire language (section 5).
It is now finally time to
readdress one of the most ancient explanations for the origin of language: our
musicality or singing capacity, which is essential in explaining both the
phylogenetic and developmental origin of language. Both the origin of language
and its development in children, we argue, can be best understood by
recognising that we are musical or singing primates in the first place.
4. Phylogenetic origins of spoken language
4.1. Protolanguages
Are there cues to
protolanguage in close relatives of ours? Burling [13] states: "Since our surviving primate
communication system remains sharply distinct from language, it is implausible
that it could have served as the base from which language evolved. We are more
likely to find hints about language origins by studying how primates use their
minds than by studying how they communicate." The same conclusion was
reached by Jonker [42]. This is not in contradiction with
our claim for some universal mental syntax among higher animals (see 2.1.2).
However, we should mention
that opinions differ:
"The
analysis of the so-called long calls in chimpanzees and bonobos make it likely
that the group-living great apes preserved the ability to create syntactically
different calls, which would be developed by requirements of social life. A
call repertoire emerged in these species which contained a large number of call
variants at group level available for each group member via social learning.
This type of animal call is different from ordinary animal communication; it
shows some features of human language." [91].
There is also some
controversy with regard to the speech capacities of our ancestors. Is speech
already present in H. erectus? Since when can H. sapiens (which
originated about half a million years ago) speak. Could H. sapiens
neanderthalensis speak?
The archaeological evidence
indicates that planning and other complex activities date back at the earliest
perhaps 60,000 years ago. Noble and Davidson [63] argue that increasing tool use capacities, the
occurrence of cultural artifacts (paintings, statues), and burial practices
follow from the mental activity enabled by language. Such behavioural evidence
of language starts with the Upper Palaeolithic around 40,000 years ago.
Maybe significantly, it was at this time that anatomically modern humans
started to replace Neanderthals which only became extinct between 40,000
to 32,000 years ago. Others also argue in favour of a late origin of vocal
language [58].
Here, we adopt the point of
view that spoken, symbolic language is quite different from primate languages
and that it originated only recently.
4.2. The musical primate
4.2.1. Humans have unique
adaptations for singing.
The idea that the origin of
speech lies in our ability to sing can be traced back to at least Jean Jacques
Rousseau, in the seventeenth century [73]. It was suggested by the famous
linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt in the nineteenth century [94] and by Otto Jespersen early in this one [41]. However, this approach to language has been
ignored in more modern times. Indicative is that the word `music' lacks in the
index of the recent books of Pinker [67] and Deacon [21]. In recent times, music has received serious
attention by some linguists [48], but this was done within the
Chomskyan paradigm and did not address the origin of language.
Just like song birds
possess highly sophisticated syringes, there are very characteristic
morphological changes of the human glottis and larynx, unequalled in any
mammalian species [75]. Aitchison [1] remarks: "Our language has more in
common with the singing and calling of birds, than with the vocal signals of
apes."
The resemblance to bird
song was noticed already by Charles Darwin [19]:
"(Language)
is certainly not a true instinct [Note
4], for
every language has to be learnt. It differs, however, widely from all ordinary
arts, for man has an instinctive tendency to speak, as we see in the babble of
our young children; whilst no child has an instinctive tendency to brew, bake,
or write. ... The sounds uttered by birds offer in several respects the nearest
analogy to language, for all the members of the same species utter the same
instinctive cries expressive of their emotions; and all the kinds which sing,
exert their power instinctively; but the actual song, and even the call-notes,
are learnt from their parents or foster-parents. These sounds, ..., are no more
innate then language is in man."
Provine [68] has shown that a unique overlooked feature of
human speech is our ability to integrate respiration and vocalisation. We, as humans,
breath in a way unique among the primates - since only we can neurally modulate
sequences of tonal vocalisations upon our expirations. Other primates can
vocalise but they are limited to only one vocalization per expiration. For
example, both humans and chimpanzees laugh: however, chimpanzees do so by an
`ah', `ah', `ah' sequence of repeated inspirations and expirations. In
contrast, we do a modulating `ha, ha, ha, ..' or `ho, ho, ho ..' upon a single
out-breath - this modulation often going on continuous for 16 laughter
syllables [68, pp. 40-41]. Moveover, we can subtly
tune our series of vocalisations upon a single continuous out-breath. Only
amongst birds - not other primates - are there species that possess comparable respiratory-control
ability. This underlies the curious fact that while some birds can imitate
human speech, the much more closely related chimpanzee or any mammal cannot.
The neural control that
allows song was, we suggest, a profound revolution: the `one breath
one-vocalisation' rule stops chimpanzees not only from laughing like humans but
also from being able to control the expiration needed to speak. This, as
Provine [68] notes, is the reason why attempts
to teach spoken language to chimpanzees have failed in spite of them being able
to learn sign and token-based languages and even to understand spoken
speech [76, p. 40-41].
Neural control of
respiration allows many more kinds of vocalizations: over 700 vowel, diphthongs
and consonantal phones were found in a sample based upon only one-twentieth of
all the world's languages [52]. Moreover, such control allows the
concatenation of very complex sequences. Thus, vocalisations upon a single
out-breath combine into words, and these in turn combine into clauses, phrases
and sentences. Neural control also allows modulations to be superimposed upon
these vocalisations, such as intonation (linguistic, pragmatic and emotional),
and this can be upon a wide variety of speech types like whisper, song, chant,
scream, motherese, `Donald-Duck speech' and ventriloquism.
The tonal modulation of
song is not only enabled by neural control but also by anatomical
specialisation of the vocal tract for producing a wide variety of pitches and
timbres. The peculiarity of our vocal tract is usually attributed to enabling
speech, although it is sometimes also considered as a mere consequence of
postural changes between the head and thorax that accompanied the upright
stance and human-style bipedal locomotion (see also the postscript). However, the anatomical characteristics of
the vocal tract are more closely linked to our capacity to sing than to our
capacity to speak. People cannot sing without fully using all their vocal
tract. However, people can speak without using large parts of the vocal tract
(for instance in buccal speech, more familiarly known as Donald-Duck speech).
Although normal speech contains a range of vowels and consonants that fully
exploit the vocal tract, sufficient variety amongst the world's languages
exists to suggest that intelligible speech only needs a subset of
possibilities, exploiting only part of the vocal tract's pronounciation
potential.
Without the neural control
that enables song, speech could not exist. But which came first? We argue that
we can speak because we can sing, and not that we can sing because we can
speak, also for parsimonious reasons: the capacity to speak requires in addition
to respirational control also syntax, phonology and the capacity to use and
learn a vocabulary of words (see also the remarks in 3.2.7), while singing requires none of these (songs
can exist without words). Second, in the development of speech by children,
melody - in terms of interest in and production of intonation and rhythm -
comes before other aspects such as phonology, syntax and vocabulary (see
section 5).
4.2.2. Musical primates and song
birds: examples of convergent evolution?
4.2.2.1. Introduction
The exact reason for the
origin of singing behaviour is beyond the scope of this paper, but it is clear
that the ability to sing has been naturally selected on many separate occasions
- e.g. birds, whales and gibbons. Where this has happened, there have often
been highly complex adaptations both anatomical and neural. The major idea here
is that the complex changes which were necessary to develop an organ which
eventually could be used for symbolic language production were selected for
singing and not for speech. Convergent evolution to what may have happened to
modern humans can be observed in song birds. Also song birds developed highly
complex adaptations, anatomical and neural, as a result of natural selection
for better song capacities [Note 5].
4.2.2.2. Music and mating
Song production and song
preference play an important role in mating in song birds. Possibly music had a
similar role originally in human mating - and it still has to some extent.
Below are some of the several possible examples of the central role of music in
courting behaviour. In several cultures males indeed bring serenades for their
beloved. Also, male singers and musicians in general exert strong physical
attractiveness on females (some females even have orgastic experiences during
concerts). Much poetry and love texts sound silly when proclaimed, but are
quite acceptable and even touching and convincing when sung. Adolescents meet
through singing, listening to music and dancing.
Moreover, sexual selection
of the ability to sing is more plausible than sexual selection of the ability
to speak. Sexual selection requires only an inherited preference for singers of
distinctive emotional melodies rather than good story telling - something that
requires that language itself is first well understood.
However, it might be
objected that this fails to explain why females would also sing and speak. It
should be noted that, while it is true that in many song birds only males sing,
females inherit genetically the abilities to sing - something that can be shown
since female singing can be triggered by hormonal treatment. Therefore, it is
evolutionarily possible that a small genetic change triggered hormonal changes
so that singing by females became possible, after it had first been sexually
selected for in males. From considering some tropical song birds, we might
understand how song capacity of females might have been selected for,
eventually after it arose in males by sexual selection first.
4.2.2.3. Music and bonding
Indeed, the situation
whereby male song birds exclusively sing happens to be true only for temperate
regions. In some species of tropical song birds, females as much as males can
engage in singing. Moveover, unlike in temperate areas, where male song links
to the defense of territory and attracting potential mates, in these tropical
species male and female singing links to bond formation and bond maintenance.
This becomes apparent from the following quote [88]:
"In the tropics, although there are many species of birds the song
of which is doubtless just as territorial in function as is usual in the
temperate regions, the ornithologist is also struck by the number of examples
where song appears much less aggressive in intent and where its function is
apparently as a social signal, for maintaining pair and family bonds and as
part of the sexual display, rather than a territorial one. Moreover, it is
perhaps significant that most of the outstanding vocal imitators are found
among tropical or subtropical species.".
Thorpe & North [88] give the example of a pair of birds which
communicated via a 15 note antiphonal duet. However when one bird died the
survivor resumed the performance of the whole - something it had never done
previously! They note of another case of duetting, reported elsewhere, that `when
the partners were absent, the remaining bird would use the sounds normally
reserved for his partner, with the result that the partner would return as
quickly as possible, as if called by name'. This strongly suggests that we
witness here a real case where song is used meaningfully in social
communication as a bonder. On top of that, the vocal tract of these birds has
attained such sophistication, that it enables them to imitate human speech.
Music has bonding function
in close relatives of ours as well. As noted above, male and female Siamang
sing (the male bitonally and without melody; the female monotonously) to
establish and maintain pair-bonding and the social recognition of their
terrority [38].
The cue of the use of song
as a bond strengthening means of communication, rather than song being a trait
which has evolved by sexual selection alone, itself leads to some intriguing
remarks with regard to the special `sociological' case humans are among
primates (and animals/mammals in general). We know, by comparing the social
nature of humans with other apes, that we too have evolved an unique capacity
to bond with each other. Indeed, it is also in the depth and complexity of our
bonding that humans differ (apart from language) from other primates. From
these observations and considerations we are tempted to conclude that
musicality not only can explain how symbolic language evolved, but also that
song, as a means to aid bond formation, can help to explain how the
characteristic sexual-social relationships between humans became possible (see
also 4.3.2).
4.3. Present and past social music
4.3.1. Various observations
What evidence exists for
the key role of music in the lives of humans? Below we give a very limited
excerpt of the functions and possibilities in human social life. All human cultures
possess lullabies and use them to sing children to sleep. The music business is
among the world's major industries. Going to war is so much more fun with a
drum band marching along. Dancing to music can give people mystical trance
experiences. Music brings up deep emotions such as hope, pleasure, comfort or
sadness, and probably no other `art' can do this as profoundly as music. From
observations of currently existing `premodern' societies, it is clear that
music (and its counterpart, dance) must have played an even more important,
pivotal role in early human societies. Music has a role, not only in rituals,
but also in many practical activities. For instance, Australian aboriginals
memorize the look of landscapes in songs. Although the music making of early
humans has left no physical remains, it must have been a major part of their
lives, as it still largely is an essential part of our lives.
4.3.2. Music and group identity
There is the observation
that rituals, dance and song enhance group identity. With respect to
territorial behaviour, it should be noticed that singing is indeed used for
that purpose in close relatives of ours: "In addition to the well-known
territorial bird songs, some monkey species and all species of lesser apes have
territorial songs." [91].
From what we know about
ourselves as apes, increasing group identity could have put strong evolutionary
pressure on singing behaviour. To understand this we must digress upon what has
recently been found about our uniqueness as social apes. Humans, chimpanzees
and presumably our earliest shared ancestors mix a life-style of belonging to a
group, while separating into smaller parties during much of the lives. This is
called an atomistic or fission-fusion social existence [72]. We, however, do so in a way that is unique
because the bonds are robust and long-termed and allow for long periods of
separation. Biological parents in all human societies form bonds with each
other (though not necessarily monogamous ones). People form life-long
attachments with friends and distant kin. We, moreover, usually form a
life-long attachment with our `identity group' from the level of our extended
family to that of our nation and religion.
Early humans faced the
paradoxical problem of relying for survival both on a group and on the
recurrent need to split-up. Anthropologists and historians identify the
mechanism by which people create and sustain the required social attachments
with rituals and group activities involving synchronised song and dance [54]. The need for sustained social bonds may have
further selected (after possibly initial sexual selection and selection for
stronger pair bonding (see 4.2.2.3)), for dance and song competence [Note 6].
Modern remnants of this
ancient function of music might be the supporters' songs of sports teams, songs
of any kind of club (e.g. students), war music and the national hymns, closely
linked to the notions of territory and group identity. Indeed, music, singing
and dancing still plays the central role in social life of all extant original
bands. Ceremonies, rituals, and many other group activities (work-gangs,
parties, festivals) all exploit the strong emotions which come with the
ensemble of vocalisations and movement. Just think of the emotional bonding,
the sense of belonging, the experience of `together we are invincible' that
accompanies marching songs, football stadium chants, National Anthems,
camp-fire songs, hymns, corals, etc.
Increasing group identity
exists in a nonmusical form in the collective intoning and synchronisation of
bodily movements in religious prayers, petitions, supplications, orisons and
worship. In modern societies, such synchronisation offers people a temporary
sense of belongingness. In most cultures, they form an important part of
rituals, ceremonies and other shared enjoyments which result in the affective
togetherness that creates and sustains a society's collective existence [10, 54, 78].
4.4. Conclusion
Whatever the role of early
singing was (territorial marking, courting, pair bond maintenance, enhancing
group identity) it is clear that singing, musicality and dance had an important
role to play in human social interactions, and that consequently musicality is
plausibly selected for by good old natural selection. The development of a
complex organ like the Homo sapiens vocal tract then can be understood
to have been developed by natural selection more easily than in case we have to
hypothesize that this natural selection occurred on the basis for selection of
better speech [21, 67]. Only later on, these vocal abilities were
used for speaking, and this view coincides with the proposition of Gould &
Lewontin [34] that language is a spandrel or an
exaptation: language was possible because of a preadaptation which developed
for other reasons. While singing is an innate capacity, an instinct, speaking
is a possibility emerging from singing and increased mental representational
capacities. We could better speak of the song instinct than of the language
instinct.
Comparing the role of song
in some tropical song birds and in the siamang, one is tempted to state that
song co-evolved with pair bonding, and thereby also helps to explain how the
intriguing social and sexual characteristics of human life evolved.
5. Melody and language learning by children
5.1. Introduction: the semantics of spoken syntax
Do humans have a language
acquiring device as Chomsky has proposed?
Most students of language
easily accept that semantics is about linking mental representations of objects
and concepts to the symbolic lexicon that happens to be used by a language. However,
when it comes to syntax, most linguists seem to assume that there is only
linguistic syntax. Above we have argued that all higher animals possess some
universal mental, thinking syntax (see 2.2.2), while on the other hand it is
tremendously difficult to discover any universality among the amazing diversity
of spoken syntaxes (see 3.1).
The problem with spoken
syntax therefore boils down to the same problem of linking lexicon to mental representation:
semantic meaning must be given to spoken syntactic entities by linking them to
the mental syntax. We think this approach has been overlooked by most students
of language. Then one must wonder how this can be achieved, since spoken syntax
can be any kind, while mental syntax can be supposed to be largely alike among
humans - and basically even among higher animals.
5.2. Music and language development
One of the big mysteries in
speech acquisition is how children identify words. While the words on this page
are divided by spaces, spoken words are not. Before you can identify words you
have somehow to identify where and when they start and end. Failure to solve
this hard problem holds back artificial speech recognition. The earliest voice
recognition programs required that people spoke words slowly and in isolation.
We suggest, backed up by a growing research, that infants solve this problem by
listening to the rhythmicity and to the melody of stresses and tones in speech.
Even before children are born,
their brains are familiar with the sounds that will surround them after birth.
Newborns prefer the voice of their mother over that of strangers [23]. If a mother repeats a short story twice a day
for the last six and half weeks of her pregnancy, her newborn child will prefer
hearing it to one she did not [24]. The womb is an acoustic filter
that preserves the intonations of a mother's speech. Thus, the brain is
learning to hear speech as a melody from long before birth.
This is supported by other
work upon newborns. It has been shown that newborns can discriminate the rhythm
of multisyllabic stressed words suggesting they are already sensitive to the
word-rhythm [74]. Moreover, newborns already prefer
infant-directed prosodity stressing speech (motherese) over adult-directed
speech [18]. Complementary to this, mothers
expand the intonation contours of their speech to their child as soon as it is
born [28]. Such motherese compared to
adult-directed speech has emphasized prosody, namely higher overall pitch,
wider pitch excursions, broader pitch range, increased rhythmicity, slower
tempo, longer word durations and increased amplitude. Newborns moreover can
distinguish their own language from a foreign one, something which must be due
to the unique, prosodic cues of a language [55]. This suggests they are increasingly able to
focus upon the unique intonation aspects of their `mother' tongue.
Children's own
vocalisations, it should be noted, also start to be affected by these
intonations:
"A
cross-cultural investigation of the influence of target-language in babbling
was carried out. 1047 vowels produced by twenty 10-month-old infants from
Parisian French, London English, Hong Kong Cantonese and Algiers Arabic
language backgrounds were recorded in the cities of origin and spectrally
analysed. ... Statistical analyses provide evidence of differences between
infants across language backgrounds. These differences parallel those found in
adult speech in the corresponding languages." [22].
There is also the
observation of the tremendous similarity of pronounciation within a slang. We
all know the phenomenon that one can easily recognize the region where one
comes from. Many people never succeed in speaking properly the standard
language because of an uneradicable accent, which indicates the thorough
imprinting which occurs: we do not only acquire lexicon, we mimick intonation
almost exactly from our environment [Note 7].
The previous paragraphs
lead us to suggest that some auditory equivalents to Rizzolatti-cells (see Note 1) must exist. Rizzolatti-cells and equivalents
may be an important cue to understanding mimicking, to link the behaviour of
genetically encoded cells to copyable observable (visual, auditory) behaviour
of animals.
Intonation provides cues to
how words are structured in sentences [59]. Words are not said uniformly but are
intonation phrased. Spotting this intonation structure facilitates children to
grasp how words are syntactically put together. Children use the intonational
cues that tend to identify word beginnings [62]. These cues vary with language: stress for
example in English, syllable in French and mora in Japanese. Children in all
these languages develop a sensitivity to the intonational beat provided by
these cues that mark off word separation.
Let us take a famous
Chomskyan example which relates to inversion of the word order of statements in
order to turn these into a question. Children with English speaking parents
readily adopt that `The man is here.' becomes a question by reversal of noun
and verb: `Is the man here?'. But how does one turn the slightly more complex
sentence: `The man who is tall, is here.' into a question? One might expect a
child, who has just mastered the simple example to place the first `is' in
front of the sentence, to say: `Is the man who tall is here?'. But children
never make this mistake. Do we need Chomskyan theory, borrowed from mathematics
and logic? Linguists developed rather complicated theories (like X-bar theory)
whereby humans use `null' elements to cope with this and related problems (see
Smith and Szathmary [83] for a brief explanation).
What if we adopted the
answer that children simply hear which of the two verbs is the main verb. Say
the complex sentence to yourself and listen how the intonation on the second
`is' is different from the first `is'. Now, try to reverse intonations. It
requires a little exercise to do so, since it is experienced as a very
`unnatural' (we should actually say `uncultural') thing to do, which by itself
provides circumstantial evidence on the importance and the strict use of
intonation. Children just hear which verb is the one which goes along with the
man, because of the intonation of the main verb. Remark that the pitch of the
main verb in the complex sentence is exactly the same pitch the main verb
carries in the simpler sentence AND in the question. Once this has been
acquired, children can generalize this principle to any similar sentence they
meet. The intonation recognition capacity is one which stems from our innate
musicality (naturally selected recently for other reasons than language
itself), while the generalization capacity is part of the mental syntax
capacity which we have inherited from animals (naturally selected for still
other reasons). Bringing the two together one can have something like syntactic
symbolic language.
Thus, children start off
experiencing language as a kind of music. Parents and others respond to this
sensitivity by making their language to them more musical - motherese. The
rhythms of speech, which are heightened by motherese, provide the child with a
means to use their sense of rhythm to spot the words and sentence structure.
Memetic ontology thus replicates memetic phylogeny. In other words: music is
both the answer to the phylogenetic and to the developmental origin of
language.
Children, before acquiring
the language spoken around them can distinguish phonetic categories of foreign
languages they have not heard [27, 86, 90], only to loose this ability at
around ten months [4]. One wonders why children should
have this ability, in case language was naturally selected for, since this
would require only the evolution of recognition of a limited phonological set.
While explaining this from a `natural selection for language' point of view is
a real conundrum, it becomes triviality when adopting an innate sensitivity for
melodizing.
Also, there are the
numerous reports on the application of Music Intonation Therapy [2] to treat language disorders, as is exemplified
by the quotes below:
"In order to develop a
useful communication system, a 3-year-old, non-verbal autistic boy was treated
for 1 year with a Simultaneous Communication method involving signed and verbal
language. As this procedure proved not useful in this case, an adaptation of
Melodic Intonation Therapy (signing plus an intoned rather than spoken verbal
stimulus) was tried. With this experimental language treatment, the patient
produced trained, imitative and, finally, spontaneous intoned verbalizations
which generalized to a variety of situations." [56]
"We examined
mechanisms of recovery from aphasia in seven nonfluent aphasic patients, who
were successfully treated with melodic intonation therapy (MIT) after a lengthy
absence of spontaneous recovery." [7].
"In
patients with brain lesion, a pre-verbal, emotionally-focussed tonal language
almost invariably is capable of reaching the still healthy sections of the
person. Hence, it is possible for music therapy to both establish contact with
the seemingly non-responsive patient and re-stimulate the person's fundamental
communication competencies and experience at the emotional, social and
cognitive levels." [43].
Furthermore, it has been
shown that music is not only important for developing linguistic skills, but
also serves as a memory aid [65] and plays a role in the development
of motoric skills [12].
Strong suggestions for the
existence of a music acquiring device comparable to the hypothetical Chomskyan
language acquiring device have been made by others. We claim that this MAD is
our LAD:
"Full-term
infants' performance in detection of melodic alterations appeared to be
influenced by perceptual experience from 6 months to 1 year of age, and an
experiment with infants born prematurely supported the hypothesis that
experience affects music processing in infancy. These findings suggest parallel
developmental tendencies in the perception of music and speech that may reflect
general acquisition of perceptual abilities for processing of complex auditory
patterns." [51].
"This
indicates the existence of a partly innate and partly acquired competence to
judge what is acceptable and what is not, within the tradition of Western
popular or classical music. This seems to indicate the existence of some deep
structure of tonality, comparable with Chomsky's deep language structure.
Asians who have not been much exposed to this kind of music find the task very
difficult." (Kalmus & Fry [44], reporting on experiments whereby subjects
were asked to evaluate some characteristics of Western classic music).
The last sentence from the
previous quote is again a strong indication for the importance of the tonality
of the language and the music of a childs' culture in moulding its innate
recognition capacities. Depending on the culture, one's experience of what
sounds acceptable and what is not, is completely different (by itself again an
indication against a universal spoken grammar and natural selection of
language). This is nicely illustrated by the fact that (Western) MIT therapy
has to be adopted when it is used in an Asian country. When applying MIT for
use with Japanese patients, the authors report that basic changes were
necessary, because of the completely different `pitch' of Japanese
language [79].
Furthermore, Simmons &
Baltaxe [80], studying adolescent autistics with
linguistic impairments, suggested that:
"
... perception of prosodic features may be crucial for decoding and encoding
linguistic signals. Autistic
children may be lacking in this ability."
6. Final conclusions
6.1. Summary
We argue that a combined
genetic and memetic explanation is needed to understand what language is about
and how it developed originally and develops with almost every new human.
According to the point of view
presented here, symbolic, spoken language emerges from the (coincidental)
combination of complex representational capacity with intonation
recognition/reproduction capacity (which itself develops in close connection
with singing capacity). As such, it is claimed that it is not language itself
which has been naturally selected for. Language is considered as a cultural
phenomenon very well comparable to bird song culture, only more sophisticated
(variable, flexible, more symbolic, syntactic) just because of the more
sophisticated mental representation capacities of higher apes. In summary,
birds did not develop symbolic language to the extent that humans did, because
of more limited mental representation capacities, chimpanzees did not because
of lack of singing capacities. Humans simply happened to combine both
characteristics. How language then can develop by memetic evolution, might
partially be answered by work presently being done with interacting robot
agents [84], and is the subject of further
work [82].
Once the preference for
sound variety has been selected for, something which may happen for various
reasons and which has occurred independently in different animal taxa,
individuals which can produce any kind of primitive song may be reproductively
more successful through sexual selection. Moreover, the group of singing and
dancing individuals as a whole, whatever the genetic make-up of the
individuals, may become more successful because of the increased group identity
awareness which makes its members cooperate more efficiently or which may make
the members lose their individuality to some degree, resulting e.g. in more
fierce, aggressive behaviour with regard to non tribe members. Indeed, another
typical characteristic of humans is our long tradition of warfare and
genocide [25].
6.2. How does this approach compare to the hypotheses
put forward by Chomsky [16, 17], Pinker [67] and Deacon [21]?
With respect to the
development of language in children, one can agree with Chomsky that humans have
special abilities to adopt language and syntax very spontaneously early in
childhood and this can be called an innate language acquiring device. Still, it
probably might best be understood as an innate music acquiring device, which
enables to link any possible syntax of spoken language - the one used by the
adults which happen to raise the child or by other children which happen to
grow up with the child - to the universal mental syntax, of which we share the
general basic possibilities for categorization and for generalization of causal
rules with animals.
We do not agree with the
Chomskyan suggestion, taken for granted by Pinker [67], but thoroughly criticized by e.g.
Allott [3], Deacon [21] and Tomasello [89], that there is such a thing as universal
linguistic grammar.
Furthermore, the
explanation of the origin of language in evolution and during individual
development, as proposed here, has nothing in common with the adaptationist
explanations of Pinker (see 3.2). Not only Allott [3] and
Tomasello [89] point to different shortcomings of
this kind of reasoning, but also Deacon [21] has clearly indicated several flaws. Several
other criticisms are possible [82]. What Pinker [67] calls a `boring conclusion', is simply a
completely erroneous conclusion.
We can largely agree with
Deacon [21] that we are a symbolic species, and
his evolutionary reasoning is much more relevant than that of Pinker. However,
Deacon [21], like Pinker [67], relies on long term (2 million years) gradual
evolution through selective advantage offered by the use of symbols, while
instead proposing Baldwinian evolution (evolution by genetic assimilation of
behavioural characteristics).
Both our approach and - to
a certain degree (because of the pivotal role of symbolic gestures and sounds)
- that of Deacon could be called `memetic'. The difference is that in Deacon's
approach gestures and symbolic sounds come into play already 2 million years
ago (at the stage of Homo habilis) and reshape the brain by genetic
assimilation. In our approach natural selection for better general mental
abilities and, only recently (possibly with the advent of Homo sapiens
sapiens), natural selection for musicality explains the reshaping of the
brain and the vocal tract and we claim that it is from the combination of
increased intelligence and vocal flexibility that language emerges as a
cultural process, while we dismiss natural selection or Baldwinian evolution
guided by the advantages brought along by the linguistic capacity - as is
proposed by either Pinker [67] or Deacon [21].
Once humans combined mental
capacity and musicality, we rely on genetically encoded flexibility of the
brain to explain how symbolic sounds - memes - could develop and restructure
brain mapping in a nongenetically inheritable manner. In other words, genes
provide general capacities like brain flexibility, vocal dexterity, intonation
recognition and reproduction capacity, while memes - through interaction with
the developing brain - strongly influence the rewiring of the neuronal
connections which make up a brain.
Although we date the
influence of symbolic sounds much later than Deacon [21], we claim that once they originate, further
changes occur in an almost purely memetic manner. The example below of the
differences between literate and illiterate persons indicates how influential
the means of communication are with respect to our mental abilities.
Our musical language origin
theory coincides best with "the idea that removal of vocal limitations
released untapped linguistic abilities which has been a major theme of a number
of language origin theories (most notably argued by Philip Lieberman, in a
number of influential books and articles)[49, 50]" (quote from Deacon [21], page 354). Deacon however considers this as
an oversimplification and states that: "... the development of skilled
vocal ability was almost certainly a protracted process in hominid evolution,
not a sudden shift." ([21], page 354), whereupon we disagree,
backed up by the archeological record (see 4.1). Our hypothesis provides strong support for
the insights of Lieberman [49, 50] (see also the postscript).
6.3. Why has the musical origin of language hypothesis
been overlooked?
There is a further
intriguing question, in case our hypothesis - which we will defend also on
grounds of a more linguistic and neurolinguistic approach [82] -turns out to be a major key in understanding
the origin of language. Indeed, one keeps wondering why this obvious,
straightforward, and with hindsight even trivial approach to explaining the
origin of language has been overlooked by linguists during the last decades.
This is even more astounding, first because some of the earliest theories posed
that musicality had to lay at the origin of language [19, 73, 94] - even Darwin [19] pointed to the resemblance and second because the importance of rhythm,
intonation, melody, etc. in every day life, in language therapy and in child
language (as briefly reviewed above) is so overwhelming, and is well studied.
Several explanations can be
thought of. First, there is of course the adaptationist paradigm which keeps us
thinking in terms of function, usefulness, and which makes us overlook that
usefulness is a posthoc consideration which can only serve as an explanation
once the necessary events leading to the existence of some characteristics have
taken place. Natural selection can explain why something still exists, but not
how it came into being. The necessary variation is not a matter of natural
selection, it is a matter of contingency, coincidence, mutation, recombination,
symbiosis, evolution of characteristics for other reasons than the ones for
which they eventually are useful now (preadaptation, exaptation).
Second, and closely linked
to the previous considerations, there is the fact that we all are impressed by
the explanatory power of natural selection of genetic characteristics in
general, which makes us forget that natural selection is just a special case of
selection (see Note 2). Therefore, there is a tradition
of trying to explain everything with genes only.
Third, with respect to
language, another important bias may exist. It appears that most linguists
depart for their considerations from the present form of language, which needs
a sophisticated grammar because much of communication is in the form of written
code, which lacks the intonation characteristic of spoken language. E.g,
writing down a joke may be experienced as an insult instead of as the tongue in
cheek remark it was meant to be. In oral communication this will in most
instances be clear, because of the facial expression and the intonation. Using
written code, we need question marks, exclamation marks or ":-)" (the smile-sign as used in
e-mail discussions) to indicate that what we write is meant as a question, an
important remark or a joke. Written code, lacking intonation and eye-contact,
compensates grammatically for the absence of a shared context with the
listener, and finally influences more and more the way we speak, as becomes
clear from studies comparing cognitive linguistic capacities between literates
and illiterates.
Illiterates - when compared
with literates of the same background - have been found to show cognitive
difficulties in nonreading tasks such as phoneme awareness [8, 61], repeating nonwords (phoneme
sequences that do not pronounce a familiar word) [60], memorising pairs of phonologically related
words compared to semantically related ones, and difficulties in generating
words which start with a common phoneme sound or which are the names of animals
or furniture [69]. Several other studies lead to the
suggestion that learning to read and write might not only challenge how people
process oral language but also does change the organisation of people's brains [14, 95]. This was already suggested upon
nonpsychological and nonneurological grounds [64].
However, most linguists
start from the current situation (a literate world) and extrapolate and/or
impose our way of thinking, living, interacting, communicating to the
illiterate societies in which the original humans lived at the time language
originated (see 3.2.5 for a comparable bias), thereby
forgetting how different we are because of the completely different memes which
populate our brains and because of the fact that the environment we have to
cope with is incomparably different to the natural environments in which
language first evolved.
6.4. Could large vocabularies alone be sufficient for
the development of syntax?
It is important to quote
here recent work of Bates & Goodman [6],
which indicates that syntax abilities parallel very tightly vocabulary size
over a wide variety of ages. Thus, though children may vary widely with respect
to the size of the vocabulary at a certain age (some children acquire words
more easily than others), the degree of grammatical competence they acquire is
strictly linked to the lexical stage at which they are. This means that two
children - one 3-year-old and one 5-year-old, but each with a vocabulary of 200
words, will have both the same stage of syntax.
Bates & Goodman [6] point out the implications of this for
language in chimps. Chomskyans make it a slogan that `animals cannot learn
grammar' and hence that `grammar is unique to the human species'. Bates points out
however that chimps taught language in fact attain the level of syntactical
competence you would expect from human children with the same size of
vocabulary. Bates and Goodman [6] state that, if chimps lack syntax,
it is not because they lack a human competence for syntax, but because their
vocabularies are too limited.
This becomes apparent from
the following quote:
"These differences between grammar and vocabulary are usually
interpreted to reflect a qualitative difference in the language-learning
abilities of non-human primates (that is, they have lexical abilities, but they
lack a `grammar acquisition device'). That may well be the case; after all,
they are not human. However, the data that we have presented here suggest another
interpretation: Because the animals studied to date apparently find it
difficult to produce more than 200-300 words, symbols or signs, we should not
be surprised to find that they also have very restricted abilities in
expressive grammar. Consider the developmental relationship between grammar and
vocabulary size that we have observed in human children. From these figures, it
is clear that children with vocabularies under 300 words have very restricted
grammatical abilities: some combinations, a few function words in the right
places, the occassional bound morpheme, but little evidence for productive
control over morphology or syntax. Viewed in this light, the difference between
child and chimpanzee may lie not in the emergence of a separate grammar `module',
but in the absolute level that they are able to attain in either of these
domains. Chimpanzees do not attain the `critical mass' that is necessary for
grammar in normal children; instead, they appear to be arrested at a point in
lexical development when grammar is still at a very simple level in the human
child. Hence, the putative dissociation between lexical and grammatical
abilities in nonhuman primates may be an illusion".
From these considerations,
it appears that to explain the rise of syntax, the problem is not how to
explain any `syntax' module arose peculiar to humans, but the problem is to
explain why large vocabularies arose. If you can explain that, you can explain
the rise of syntax. The solution to the problem of how a large vocabulary could
arise, follows from what we suggest: humans are originally musical primates.
Once humans gained the neurological abilities to control vocalisation needed to
sing, they gained the abilities to create vast vocabularies of words. Although
a large vocabulary on its own may be sufficient for syntactical ability to
develop, as Bates & Goodman [6] suggest, we think that it helps
when you have a MAD, a well developed intonation recognition/reproduction
device, at your disposal. Musical ability may explain the rise of a large
vocabulary and at the same time may be an extra gain to create and acquire
linguistic grammar.
A `musical origin of
language' theory enables to bring together the ideas of Deacon [21], Lieberman [49, 50] and Bates & Goodman [6] (among many others). One could say that at
some point, quantity (increased intelligence/mental syntax capacity, increased
vocal flexibility, increased vocabulary) may change into (or emerge as) quality
(linguistic syntactic ability). The basic difference between humans and animals
then can be explained almost exclusively by the usage of symbolic/syntactic
language. Of course, the explosive cultural evolution which became possible -
once symbolic information processors like modern human brains arose - at first
sight justifies the claim that at least one qualitative difference must
distinguish humans from animals. It should be kept in mind that a minor
additional trick sometimes can make a large difference. Moreover, one of us has
previously briefly argued that the widely spread human need to claim human
uniqueness can itself be explained from the need for continued self
confirmation, which again follows from adding symbolic memes to the emotional -
animal - being we are in the first place [92].
6.5. Musicality may also explain other typically human
characteristics
Finally, it should be emphasized
again that song as a powerful means for pair bonding, as it appears to function
in some animal species, can very easily explain another intriguing and far
reaching characteristic of (modern?) humans. Human musicality can explain how
the typically strong human pair bonding could have evolved. As such, song could
explain not only speech, but also could help to understand the typically sexual
and social behaviour of humans.
Postscript.
After this manuscript was
accepted for publication, Lieberman [Lieberman, D.E. 1998. Sphenoid shortening
and the evolution of modern human cranial shape. Nature 393: 158-162] argued to
consider Homo sapiens sapiens (modern man) as a separate species from `H.
sapiens neanderthalensis', because of clear facial differences with other
hominids, incl. neanderthals. Lieberman suggests that these changes may be
related to the ability of speech. These considerations coincide with the claims
- embraced in this article (see 4.1) - for a late origin of language,
while the essential facial morphological characteristics of modern man may have
been selected for by singing ability, enabling speech, but not for speech.
Acknowledgements
MV is indebted to the FWO
Flanders for an appointment as a research director.
Notes
Note 1
In essence, the original
memes (as used among animals) can be defined as behaviours which can be
mimicked. Dawkins [20] referred to bird songs as memes.
However, one reviewer remarked that only humans can imitate in an observable
manner. If only this kind of conscious imitation counts for memes, than only
humans produce memes and washing sweet potatoes by Japanese macaques (see 3.2.4) would not be caused by imitation and thus not
be memetic. One may object that there is strong evidence for unconscious
imitation underlying learning in animals, as becomes apparent from the work of
Rizzolatti et al. [71]:
"In
area F5 of monkey premotor cortex there are neurons that discharge both when the
monkey performs an action and when he observes similar actions made by another
monkey or by the experimenter. We report here some of the properties of these
`mirror' neurons and we propose that their activity `represents' the observed
action. We posit, then, that this motor representation is at the basis of the
understanding of motor events."
Finally, it should be noted
that conscious imitation itself might be a secondary consequence of the
development of language, which makes possible reflexive awareness. If one could
show that conscious imitation is a consequence of reflexive awareness (i.e.,
consciousness), this kind of imitation could be considered itself largely as
explained once one has explained language.
Note 2
It is essential here to
reflect on the definitions of selection and natural selection. Selection is a
general principle: whenever there is variation on a theme, selection by the
environment will occur, since none, one, more or all variations
(configurations) may fit for existence in this environment. Natural selection
is a special case which follows from the fact that selection takes place among
variants on the theme of self-replicating systems, i.e. cells. The survival of
the information processor (the cellular enzymatic machinery) is intrinsically
linked to the information itself and vice versa. While differential survival of
the information processors (the cells and the multicellular colonies)
determines the reproductive success of the information molecules (the genes),
the (genetic) information in turn determines the survival rate and reproductive
success of the information replicators.
We could speak of a closed
semantic circle (present in a metabolically open system).
However, in
cultural-memetic selection, the information processors (animals, humans, copy
machines, presses, computers) can die or stop functioning while the
instantiations of information (memes, habits, knowledge) continue to flourish,
and vice versa some instantiations of information can be lost or gained - for
different reasons - without influencing the survival and/or activity of the
information processors. As such, selection of behavioural/memetic/cultural
information is basically different from the `special case' of natural
selection, although the general principles of evolution (change over time) and
selection can be applied.
Note 3
Consider the following
experiments:
A chimpanzee named Panzee
first saw a keeper hide food in one of two locked boxes. When a second keeper
entered, Panzee learned to point the second keeper in which of two cages the
food was hidden in order to obtain the food. The next experiment however seems
definite proof of the fact that the chimp knows which knowledge is in the mind
of the attendants and which knowledge it should add to get the food: keeper 1
hides the food, locks the box and gives the key to keeper 2, while
leaving. After keeper 1 left, keeper 2 hides the key and leaves. Keeper 1 then
returns without knowing where the key is hidden. If the chimp had learned by
trial and error alone, she would still point to the box where the food was
hidden. Instead, on her first try, she pointed to where the key was hidden. The
chimp showed she could fathom the working of another mind: she knew that keeper
1 did not know where the key was.
(after Mills [57])
Note 4
This leads to the remark
that `The Language Instinct' as the title of a book claiming a Darwinian
approach to the problem of the nature and the origin of language, would have
been disapproved by Darwin [19] himself.
Note 5
There might be some other
resemblance between the song capacities of song birds and humans, although this
is not really essential to the hypothesis put forward here. The front limbs in
birds have been specially adapted for repetitive motor behaviour, flight, and
Calvin [15] has proposed that special motoric
capacities in humans, through e.g. natural selection for better throwing
capacities, led to increased brain capacities in humans. Analogously, song
birds are among the most intelligent birds. However, Calvin [15] and/or others seem to claim that these motor
capacities by themselves are sufficient explanation for the linguistic
capacities of humans, while it is argued here that these were only
preadaptations which enabled singing, which itself then forms the essential
preadaptation to speech. Thus, one could propose that for birds the flying
capacity was a useful preadaptation for the possibility of song capacity, like
for humans specific motoric capacities - needed for e.g. throwing - prepared
for the possibility of singing.
Note 6
We focus on song here,
because the aim of this paper is linking it to speech. However it is clear that
song and dance go together. Many societies are known not to distinguish song
from dance [78]. In most circumstances where
singing and dancing have not been professionalised and so are done by all
members of a group, when people sing they dance (or make other collective
bodily movements), and when they dance they sing. Dance does not require vocal
control but it can be suggested that the processes which modulate vocalisation
are not restricted purely to the vocal tract but extend to incorporate other
aspects of the body. Indeed, research indicates a close linkage between speech
and gestures [29]. We suggest that part of the
evolution of vocal modulation included the ability to incorporate with
vocalisation other patterns of movement.
Note 7
With respect to the
`environment', it should be noted in passing that children learn more readily
from other children than from their parents and that they are more profoundly
influenced by the habits (including language) of other children than by the
habits of their parents (personal observations). A possible reason may be that
they need to adopt the behaviours and habits of their play mates to get
accepted in this social group.
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Further reading
AT Tierney cs 2011
PNAS 108:15510-5. The motor origins of human and avian song structure
Human song exhibits great structural diversity, yet certain aspects of
melodic shape (how pitch is patterned over time) are widespread:
- a predominance of arch-shaped & descending melodic contours in
musical phrases,
- a tendency for phrase-final notes to be rel.long &
- a bias toward small pitch movements between adjacent notes in a melody
(D.Huron 2006 "Sweet Anticipation: Music and the Psychology of
Expectation" MIT).
What is the origin of these features?
We hypothesize that they stem from motor constraints on song production
(ie, the energetic efficiency of their underlying motor actions) rather than
being innately specified.
One prediction of this hypothesis is that any animals subject to similar
motor constraints on song will exhibit similar melodic shapes, no matter how
distantly related they are to humans.
Conversely, animals who do not share similar motor constraints on song
will not exhibit convergent melodic shapes. Birds provide an ideal case for
testing these predictions: Their peripheral mechanisms of song production have
both notable similarities & differences from human vocal mechanisms
(T.Riede & F.Goller 2010 Brain Lang 115:6980).
We use these similarities & differences to make specific predictions
about shared & distinct features of human & avian song structure, and
find that these predictions are confirmed by empirical analysis of diverse
human & avian song samples.