Dear Students!
Our next speaker will be Eugene Buder, and he will be talking about “Structures possibly associated with uniquely human speech capabilities”!
The article you need to read is Fitch (2010) - from the book: The Evolution of Language - the chapter about Speech that we sent out! Don't panic because of the 129 pages - most of it is actually references since Eugene included ALL the references of the book!
He also recommends the article about increased human breath control we sent out (MacLarnon & Hewitt), but it is not obligatory!
Looking forward to our last official speaker of the seminar!!
cheers
Uli
This paper was overall interesting to read, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who sat there making weird faces and noises as I read it... Or at least I hope I'm not.
ReplyDeleteThe notion that /i/ is a supervowel was interesting, but I was wondering if the argument could be fleshed out a bit more. Why exactly is it so special? What is it about it that does not lead it to have two different acoustic signals when produced by different speakers?
Is there any explanation as to why we, and apparently many non-human animals, still use pitch to determine body size in our perception, if it is clearly not what is the case across the board? To put it differently, why does the perceptual linkage between body size and vocal pitch still exist when the correlation hasn't existed for so long? It would seem to me like such an evolutionary change would be beneficial but perhaps it's not. For example, predators that could perceive actual body size (and not the one currently expected based on the vocalization) from the pitch given to them would be more successful hunters. If so, why hasn't this ability developed yet? Though maybe there's no real way to undermine this correlation and that's why it hasn't been done away with in perception.
I'm not sure if I have much else to say, other than that I found the information presented to be understandable and interesting but in a domain that I know little else about.
During the whole semester I always have a question which is how the evolution pressure works on the frequency of human voice. In other words, each frequency band is the same to human, i.e., it is hard to claim that the frequency band what we used is better than the frequency which is given up by us. Under this condition, how the evolution pressure works on the frequency of human voice.
ReplyDeleteThis paper broadly deals with language evolution in human. Overall conclusion is that the significance of descended larynx for speech has been overestimated, and hypothesis that limitation of peripheral morphology explain the inability of most animals to speak seems unsustainable. So the crucial changes in the evolution of speech appear to be neural rather than peripheral. I like this last conclusion. I believe a high level of cognitive function could be prior to this peripheral investigation. Even if early hominins or mammals have key organs which are suited for vocal speech, they can’t speak if they don’t have cognitive ability. On the contrary to this, if they have higher cognitive process level, but not having proper vocal structures, they would use some other ways to communicate each other like drawing or gestures. Regarding that I’m curious whether the study on correlation of IQ and the number of signal in animal exist.
ReplyDeleteI thought this was a really interesting paper.
ReplyDeleteI’d like to know more about vocal tract normalization, “the process whereby we adjust our perceptual expectations to the specific vocal tract length of a speaker.”(314) Is the only component of this the auditory component, or is this thought to be a complex mechanism? How does this work?
The target article offers a rich overview of comparative research on the evolution of speech, focusing in particular on the distinct feature of a permanently descended larynx in modern humans. I have two questions about this idea, one focused on the comparative approach in general and the other on the claim concerning speech as the predominant signaling systems.
ReplyDeleteFirst, it seems that one important feature allowing certain animals to gain some rudimentary linguistic ability (e.g. Alex the parrot) is access to certain environmental structures and scaffolds. In terms of further testing the role of neural control as the primary feature of human linguistic ability, are there any hypotheses on offer in the comparative literature that consider the role of environmental affordances as being major evolutionary factors for allowing modern humans to further support the development of, and capitalize on, a permanently descended larynx?
Second, according to the author, "speech is the default signaling system for all human cultures, all over the world, and there is no evidence that this has ever been otherwise" (297-8). Is this claim meant solely in reference to linguistic signaling systems? Moreover, in evolutionary terms, wouldn't there have been a series of protolinguistic signaling structures for humans before the development of speech as this capacity? In other words, and at least indirectly related to the hypotheses of a sing-song predecessor to linguistic speech, what are some of the dominant theories for the signaling systems that set the stage for the development of speech in the terms defined by the article, as well as how these features relate to human cultural evolution?
Rhythmicity is an important feature of human language. Vocalizations of primate seem also somewhat rhythmic. Then, what would be unique characteristics of rhythmicity in human language and how this is related to breathing control?
ReplyDeleteThis article stated that being bipedal does not explain why humans have descended larynx. Perhaps the aquatic ape theory could explain that? Humans first gain control over the larynx under water and start to talk a lot and thus evolved to have permanent descended larynx. Would it be possible that although other animals like kangaroos or deer have descended larynx, they are supposed to be quiet to avoid predators so it is not used to vocalize?
ReplyDeleteMy primary reflection is similar to Sung Min Lee's, that language evolution appears to have been largely a neural process. We have discussed briefly that the tongue has extensive neural connections dominating a disproportionate share of our body's tactile recognition system. Fitch notes, similarly, that our aural recognition system for verbal phonemes is disproportionate to our other aural processing capabilities.
ReplyDeleteTo me, the tactile sensitivity of our tongue, significant in the production of phonemes, and the aural perception of phonemes indicate a co-evolutionary process between these developments and the use of language in humans. I can not imagine these developments occurred instantaneously. It seems they must have developed over time, with the rapidity with which we produce and perceive speech increasing gradually, separating off from our normal perceptive abilities.
Fitch:
"Speech is distinguished from most other sound streams by its rapidity, and the rate of phonemes in ordinary speech appears to outstrip the rate of any other sounds we perceive (Liberman et al., 1967). Early attempts to make reading machines for the blind employed arbitrary sounds like buzzes and beeps to represent individual letters. These machines were dismal failures: at a rate approaching that of speech, such sounds simply blur into a continuous cacophony (exceeding the fusion rate of the human auditory system)."