CARTA - Anthropogeny (Audio)

This CARTA symposium addresses the question of how human language came to have the kind of structure it has today, focusing on three sources of evidence. One source, which is discussed in these three talks, concerns what contrasts between new and mature languages reveal about how language evolves. Mark Aronoff (Stony Brook Univ) begins with an examination of the Co-emergence of Meaning and Structure in a New Language, followed by David Perlmutter (UC San Diego) on Combinatoriality within the Word: Sign Language Evidence, and Ray Jackendoff (Tufts Univ) on What Can You Say without Syntax? Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Humanities] [Science] [Show ID: 29394]

Mark Aronoff focuses on the emergence of words and lexical categories in new sign languages in this talk. Using naming experiments with groups of non-signing gesturers and signers of new languages, his research team has shown how all groups consistently distinguish between names and actions. They have also shown that emerging lexical distinctions are both cognitive and communicative in nature. They constitute common categories found in languages because they reflect the shared ways that humans interact with the world, involving self, other and mediating tools. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Humanities] [Science] [Show ID: 29400]

Matt Cartmill (Boston University) explains the connection between human body fat and bipedality. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Science] [Show ID: 23671]

This CARTA symposium addresses the question of how human language came to have the kind of structure it has today, focusing on three sources of evidence. One source, which is discussed in these three talks, has to do with the ways languages get new structure not present in the language of the previous generation(s) of speakers or signers. Simon Kirby (Univ of Edinburgh) begins with an examination of Language Evolution in the Lab: The Emergence of Design Features, followed by Carmel O’Shannessy (Univ of Michigan) on Contact Languages and Light Warlpiri, and Ann Senghas (Barnard College) on Rethinking Recapitulation: Sources of Structure in Nicaraguan Sign Language. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Humanities] [Science] [Show ID: 29393]

In this talk Ray Jackendoff explores forms of language with very limited organization. Such languages largely lack the familiar manifestations of syntactic structure, but they still manage to map between sound and meaning. Examples include early stages of child language, stages in acquisition of second languages by adults, pidgins, “home sign” (the sign systems invented by deaf children with no sign language input), and “village signs” spoken in isolated communities with hereditary deafness. He suggests that linear grammar is a plausible steppingstone in the evolution of the language faculty – an intermediate stage between primate call systems and modern human language. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Humanities] [Science] [Show ID: 29402]

By realizing that cultural as well as biological evolution has a central role to play in the origins of language, Simon Kirby and his team have unlocked a method that allows them to observe the evolutionary emergence of language structure in miniature cultures that they have created in the lab. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Humanities] [Science] [Show ID: 29397]

Contact languages represent some of the ways that new languages can be created, as they systematically combine elements from more than one existing language, resulting in novel linguistic systems. When multiple sources provide input to a rapidly emerging new system, elements are likely to be reanalyzed, and new structural categories may be created that differ from those in the source languages. In this talk Carmel O’Shannessy gives examples of restructuring in contact languages, including Light Warlpiri. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Humanities] [Science] [Show ID: 29398]

In this talk Ann Senghas traces the development of basic sentence structure and vocabulary in Nicaraguan Sign Language, in order to uncover the effect of language acquisition processes on language emergence and convergence across age cohorts. Evolutionary principles must apply not only to the development of humans as language learners, but also to the development of languages as systems that change and adapt over generations. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Humanities] [Science] [Show ID: 29399]

Conjugal families are often assumed to be building blocks of human societies and the primary site of childrearing in traditional communities. Alternatively, Kristen Hawkes (Univ of Utah) contends that the Grandmother Hypothesis draws attention to other relationships likely fundamental in the evolution of our lineage. Persistent ties that crosscut conjugal families are implied by our cooperative childcare, distinctive prosociality, and extraordinary operational sex ratios. These high operational sex ratios also affect the way men negotiate with other men, which in turn affects the economics of childrearing. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Humanities] [Science] [Show ID: 28036]

James Noonan, Assistant Professor of Genetics at Yale School of Medicine, focuses on identifying changes in gene regulation during early embryonic development that contributed to the evolution of uniquely human biological traits. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Science] [Show ID: 21988]