Session 2 - Anne Reboul: Origin of language and human cognition
This parallel session will be structured around five major issues that arise in the domain of the evolution of language. Abstracts are solicited which address one or more of the following issues:
1. The relevance of the distinction between I-language and E-languages for the question of language evolution. Chomsky introduced a major distinction between I-language (the inner, psychological, knowledge of grammar) and E-languages (the public languages, such as English, French, Italian, Japanese, etc.). E-languages are public by contrast with I-language, which is private. This may mean that there are not one, but two evolutionary stories to be told, one relevant to the evolution of I-language and one relevant to the evolution of E-languages. Additionally, the evolutionary processes involved might be different, e.g., one could be biological while the other one could be cultural. However, the distinction between I-language and E-languages has been largely ignored in the literature on language evolution.
2. The specificity of language(s) as compared to other animal communication systems. Hockett is famous (and widely quoted in most works on language evolution) for having proposed (see Hockett 1960) a list of thirteen essential features of language that supposedly sets it apart from other animal communication systems. However, it has been claimed (see Fitch 2009) that, though the set as a whole is specific to human language, each feature can be found in some animal communication system or other. A major question, given that the whole set seems specific to human language, is whether it is complete and what implications the fact that each feature could be shared with other species has for the field of language evolution.
3. Evolution of language: biological or cultural. When Pinker and Bloom revived the field of language evolution in 1990, their approach was firmly biological. However, nowadays, "social" accounts, emphasizing cultural rather than biological evolution, seem prominent. An important question is whether such social scenarios can entirely do away with biological approaches, given that they seem to rest on notions such as "cooperation", usually understood as "altruistic" in the biological sense (i.e., benefiting to the addressee, but detrimental to the agent). How exactly biological and cultural evolutions interact in such social accounts is a major question.
4. Cognitive vs. social scenarios. While cultural evolution views are squarely social, they nevertheless tend to sneak in some cognition: for instance, Dunbar's defense of his social account, based on the prevalence of gossip in pub conversations, seems to ignore the fact that gossip is contentful and hence necessitates fairly important cognitive (e.g., conceptual) abilities. On the other hand, biological evolution views could be either social (in line with the so-called Machivellian hypothesis on cognition) or cognitive. Disentangling cognitive from social issues, or at least articulating them precisely seems fairly urgent.
5. Biolinguistics. Biolinguistics is a lively field (as shown by the existence of a dedicated ejournal), concerned with the biological underpinnings of language, from brain circuits to evolution, thus covering all fields of linguistics (phonology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics) and looking further towards psycho- and neurolinguistics. It is also concerned with the development of language and with its neuro-developmental as well as neuropsychological deficits.
25.07.2013 10:30-12:30
Chair:10:30 - 11:30 Anne REBOUL
The social evolution of language and the necessity of implicit communication11:30 - 12:00 Philippe SCHLENKER et al.
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Dialectal variation in the meanings of Campbell's monkey alarm calls12:00 - 12:30 Andrea RAVIGNANI et al.
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Dependency sensitivity is not uniquely human: evidence from a New World primate
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25.07.2013 14:00-16:00
Chair:14:00 - 14:30 Adrien MEGUERDITCHIAN et al.
Social interaction among baboons: issues of coordination and mutual alignment in non-human primates14:30 - 15:00 Lluís BARCELÓ-COBLIJN
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On Evolution and the codifying properties of communication systems in primates15:00 - 15:30 Jeffrey WATUMULL et al.
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Comparative evolutionary approaches to I-Language/E-language: On theory and methods15:30 - 16:00 Ermenegildo BIDESE et al.
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Why generative linguistics does resist the concept of Protolanguage
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25.07.2013 16:30-18:00
Chair:16:30 - 17:00 Cedric BOECKX
Lexicon, Syntax, and Grammar: Biolinguistic concerns17:00 - 17:30 Koji FUJITA
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A Merge-only Theory of Human Language Evolution: How Plausible Is It?17:30 - 18:00 Rie ASANO
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Biolinguistics and Biomusicology: Investigating the evolution of human cognitive systems and their 'humaniqueness'
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25.07.2013 18:30-19:30
Title: -- Poster session --Chair: -- Poster session --
18:30 - 19:30 Efthymia TSAROUCHA
English Phrasal Verbs: A Case of Metonymy18:30 - 19:30 Fusa KATADA
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Ludling Acquisition in Williams-Beuren Syndrome and Its Implications to Neuroplasticity for Language Development18:30 - 19:30 Hiroyuki NISHINA
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The Complexity of the Motion Planning for Actions as Possibly Equivalent to That of Phrase Structure Grammar18:30 - 19:30 Karine ABRAHAMYAN et al.
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Cognitive word-formation: synchronic and diachronic approaches18:30 - 19:30 Katharina ZIPSER
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Proto-Language, phrase structure and nominal compounds - which of them fit together?18:30 - 19:30 Kumon Kimiaki TOKUMARU
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The Digital Language operated by Logical Syllables - Hypotheses for the Origin and Mechanism of Human Language18:30 - 19:30 Kumon Kimiaki TOKUMARU et al.
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Exploitation of the Both Variable and Constant Regions of Immunoglobulin Molecular Structure for a Concept and Grammar Complex - The Human Consciousness as Immune Networks inside Cerebrospinal Fluid (CSF) in the Ventricular System (VS) Hypothesis18:30 - 19:30 Lívia IVASKÓ
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Ostensive inferential communication, epistemic vigilance and the human frontal lobe18:30 - 19:30 Masayuki IKE-UCHI
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On the Irrelevance of E-languages to the Question of Language Evolution18:30 - 19:30 Sławomir WACEWICZ et al.
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Language Evolution: Why Hockett's Design Features Are A Non-Starter18:30 - 19:30 Thomas ROBERT
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Darwin et l'origine du langage, une théorie passionnelle18:30 - 19:30 Yvon KEROMNES
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Some thoughts, and a few words, on language, cognition and evolution
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26.07.2013 10:30-12:30
Chair:10:30 - 11:00 Andrea RAVIGNANI et al.
The Role of Quantitative Modeling in Language Evolution11:00 - 11:30 Elizabeth SHIRLEY et al.
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Processing of Lindenmayer Grammars in an Artificial Grammar Learning Task11:30 - 12:00 Stefan HARTMANN et al.
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Cognitive Foundations of Construal Operations: Perspectives from Language Change and Language Acquisition12:00 - 12:30 Antonio BENÍTEZ-BURRACO et al.
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Understanding language evolution implies understanding evolution
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26.07.2013 14:00-16:30
Chair:14:00 - 14:30 Martin PHILIPPE
Conversion of sequences of syllables in a dynamic prosodic structure14:30 - 15:00 Robert BERWICK et al.
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Language evolution is not like genomic evolution: Phonemic Diversity Fails to Detect Language Evolution out of Africa15:00 - 15:30 Tobias SCHEER
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What about third factor patterns?15:30 - 16:00 Sverker JOHANSSON
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What, if anything, can Chomsky's Third Factor contribute to the understanding of language?16:00 - 16:30 Sverker JOHANSSON
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I-language is not what evolved biologically, and E-language is not what evolved culturally
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