On Wed, 15 Dec 1999, agnes kovacs wrote:
> In their paper the authors presents an interesting evolutionary theory
> about the brain evolution and the emergence of certain neurolinguistic
> preconditions for language and they do not intend, as they say, to
> illuminate those mechanisms that may have shaped language as a
> communicative device. So, in my opinion, their theory is not about the
> origin of language, rather it is about the emergence of those
> structures which being reappropiative can support the neurological
> basis of the language.
Except, of course, if language IS essentially a "communicative device,"
in which case they may have been ill-advised to try to "modularize" its
neural bases in this way. And of course if these really are
"neurolinguistic preconditions," they must be shown to be not only
neural but linguistic, and preconditions...
> ww> Rather, as we will show in detail, language came to utilize the
> ww> processing strategies available from newly evolving premotor
> ww> cortex paired with those aspects of neural organization that allow
> ww> for amodal concept formation and yield structured abstract
> ww> representations. These aspects of neural organization arose as
> ww> byproducts of the evolution of the brain with respect to the
> ww> regulation of repatterned motor programs dedicated to the novel
> ww> manual manipulative abilities and requisite feedback circuits
> ww> associated with eye-hand coordination ccompanying the hominid
> ww> shift to bipedal locomotion.
>
> In my interpretation the authors are claiming that according to their
> investigations it is probable that language came to utilize those
> processing strategies which were derivated from the evolving premotor
> cortex. I think this is too much to say, I belive that from their datas
> we could only conclude that certain brain areas( which has certain role
> in the linguistic processing, also) like the POT and Broca s area are
> possibly derivated from the premotor cortex.
Correct. By definition, any bodily output is a "motor pattern," so
speech is too. But speech and language are, on the face of it, as
readily understood as an "elaborated motor pattern" as arithmetic,
algebra or logic are!
There has to be something more to it than that! And that "more" has to
be cognitive, and not motor. What is missing here is a connection with
language (other than geographic), and some sense of specific adaptive
advantages. In short, a transitional scenario.
> ww> We suggest that the configuration of the association cortex,
> ww> derived from primary motor and sensory cortices and motivated via
> ww> selection for neural control of the evolving hand, provided a
> ww> foothold for the operations involved in linguistic processing.
> ww> This does not imply that the respective roles of the POT or of
> ww> Broca's area in language were in any sense predetermined. Rather,
> ww> functional changes in parietal and frontal structures proceeded
> ww> even as did changes in the structures themselves (for general
> ww> discussion of relevant principles, see Bock, 1959; Futuyma, 1986,
> ww> p. 424). It is our contention that, as a consequence of the
> ww> configurational compatibility, these parietal and frontal
> ww> substrates were subsequently reappropriated for language and,
> ww> ultimately, for linguistically formatted communication.
>
> In my opinion this is an acceptable theory for the evolution of
> certain brain areas(POT, Broca) and certein functions, indeed this
> structures could be reappropiated for language, but not necessarily.
What is needed is a credible cognitive connection between what the hand
does and what the language-organ does (and I don't mean moving the
tongue and lips!).
Steklis, H.D. & Harnad, S. (1976) From hand to mouth: Some critical
stages in the evolution of language.
In: Harnad et al. 1976, 445 - 455.
> ww> The proposed cognitive construct (relevant to language) most
> ww> apparently compatible with this view of neurology is Jackendoff's
> ww> Conceptual Structure (1983,1987, 1990, and elsewhere)....
> ww> we suggest that CS is the cognitive
> ww> construct that is produced by the POT through its interaction with
> ww> Broca's area. By virtue of the POT, human sensory input is highly
> ww> processed in association cortex and loses its modality-specific
> ww> character; by virtue of Broca's area's influence on the POT, the
> ww> amodal representations are subject to hierarchical structuring.
> ww> Structured modality-neutral representation, we suggest, is the
> ww> essence of CS.
>
> ww> Importantly, CS is not part of the linguistic system per se.
>
> I only want to accentuate thah this can be a theory for the Cs, but if
> we are accepting that CS is not equal with the language, knowing
> something about CS we can say nothing important about the language,
> excluding the fact that certain cognitive functions ( eg hierarhical
> organization, abstraction, generalisation) are used by both. I accept
> that knowing a component of system we can conclude certain important
> issues, but I think there have to be a component not shared by the
> language and CS, which is more important for the language. The level of
> CS and the level of language are completly different in my opinion. ( I
> am not saying that the linguistic level is higher).I belive that, if we
> have to hierarhise the level of CS can be a first representational
> level, and the linguistic level can be a second level, because a
> linguistic module can refer to or symbolise components of the CS.
> (symbolise the symbols).
Very good comments.
I would add only that CS itself is rather vague. It is hardly a
mechanism; it is just the naming of certain associations and capacities.
Moreover, all the "multimodal association" talk is rather vague and
insubstantial. Sure, language is, among other things "multimodal" (we
can talk about things we see, hear, taste, smell; and we can do it in a
non-oral modality too), but the fact that it is polysensory is NOT the
essence of language by any means. Predator avoidance is polysensory too;
so is infant-nurturing. This kind of notion, in more current dress, is
just the trivial idea that language is the "association" of words
(auditory, oral) with things (visual, auditory, tactile). Language is
indeed that, but only in the most trivial way.
Besides, apes are quite capable of polymodal "associations" but not of
language. This is old S/R thinking in disguise. What is needed is a
reverse-engineering model of language capacity: What sort of "polymodal"
capability is it, to be able to categorize the things in the world, learn
what to do with them, and then what to CALL them, and then put their
names into sentences that tell you still more about the world?
Polymodal associations? By that token, all of cognition is just S/R
associations!
And as I said in class, hierarchicality is already inherent in
abstraction. And abstraction is the essence of categorization.
So no need either of sequences, or of grammar, or of dominance
hierarchies, in order to get to hierarchical processes.
> ww> However, the first step in language acquisition for H. habilis
> ww> might not have been so radically different from that for the
> ww> modern human child.
>
> ww> Something very like this was reported on by Feldman, et al.
> ww> (1977) for deaf children raised in linguistic isolation because
> ww> their parents and other care givers thought it best not to provide
> ww> them access to a manual language. These deaf linguistic isolates
> ww> underwent an acquisition process with striking parallels to what
> ww> might have been plausible for the first generation of language
> ww> acquirers. According to Feldman et al., the children they studied
> ww> created manual language; in the absence of language data they
> ww> developed symbolic gestures. Furthermore, they developed
> ww> gesture-order rules similar to the word-order rules devised by
> ww> hearing children in the early acquisition stages. Of particular
> ww> relevance to our earlier discussion of representation and
> ww> structure, these deaf children demonstrated naturally-occurring
> ww> segmenting behavior
>
> I can argue here that the authors do not take in consideration that the
> modern or deaf child s brain is not the same wiht the homo habilis
> brain. And in the example with the deaf childs they are contradicting
> theirselves: they claimed earlier that language has not evolved from
> communication and now are illustrating how the deaf childs have
> developed a laguage like symbolic gesture system, from gestures that
> (I presume) subserve the communication.
> following passage too.
You're right. Here, by the way, is a reference to the Kegl work on the
little "big-bang" in Nicaragua, when language was re-invented by the
"prepared brains" of language-deprived deaf children in one week.
Kegl, Judy. 1994. The Nicaraguan Sign Language Project: An Overview.
Signpost 7 (1): 24-31.
http://cgi-user.brown.edu/Administration/Brown_Alumni_Magazine/98/3-98/features/portrait.html
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/980615/15lang.htm
http://www.bcs.rochester.edu/bcs/people/postdocs/annie/nica.html
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Stevan Harnad harnad@cogsci.soton.ac.uk
Professor of Cognitive Science harnad@princeton.edu
Department of Electronics and phone: +44 23-80 592-582
Computer Science fax: +44 23-80 592-865
University of Southampton http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/
Highfield, Southampton http://www.princeton.edu/~harnad/
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