CARTA - Anthropogeny (Video)

Roger Levy, Co-Chair of this CARTA symposium on the evolution of Language, introduces the speakers and topics for this symposium which addresses the question of how human language came to have the kind of structure it has today. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Show ID: 29407]

Using data from brain imaging investigations and studies of patients with brain damage, Massachusetts General Hospital’s Evelina Fedorenko argues that a set of brain regions in the adult human brain – in the frontal and temporal lobes of the left hemisphere -- are specialized for high-level language processing. She further argues that this fronto-temporal network develops as we acquire language knowledge. In the adult brain, this system stores our linguistic knowledge representations and uses these representations to interpret and generate new utterances. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Humanities] [Science] [Show ID: 29403]

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. In this program, the speakers field questions from the audience and the seminar is concluded. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Humanities] [Science] [Show ID: 29406]

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]