Jumping from simple communication to language.

 Ramon Ferrer i Cancho

 Complex Systems Lab, Universitat Pompeu Fabra and Grup de Recerca en
Informatica Biomedica.  Barcelona, Spain. 

 rferrer@imim.es

ABSTRACT 

Syntax and symbolic reference are usually dissociated in the study of
the origins of language although both seem to be essential traits
(Knight et al., 2000).  Instead of debating which one is the most
important, we propose an integrative path. 

We define a simple form of syntax and a high order form of reference
based on connectedness in a network of signal-object associations
(Ferrer i Cancho, 2003a).  Our higher form of reference is consistent
with Terrence Deacon understanding of symbolic reference (Deacon, 1997;
Deacon, 2003).  Existent criticisms to that understanding (Hudson, 1997;
Hurford, 1999; Poeppel, 1997) are reviewed and discussed.  Following the
approach by Ferrer i Cancho (2003b), we show how a simple communication
system (namely signal-object associations) can jump to such a primitive
form of syntax and symbolic reference in a way that different human
language universals such as heavy-tailed signal frequency distributions
(e.g.  Zipf's law) and various statistical features of syntactic
dependency networks (Ferrer i Cancho et al., 2003c; Ferrer i Cancho et
al., 2003d) are reproduced.  While there are many possible ways of
explaining the origins of a primitive form of syntax (Nowak and
Komarova, 2001; Kirby; 2002), our approach is unique in the sense it
makes successful predictions about the real features of language. 

The model relies on taking into account the coding effort, that is the
cost of finding the proper signal for a given object.  Such a cost is
usually neglected in computational and mathematical approaches to the
origins of language (Kirby, 2002; Nowak and Komarova, 2001). 

One of the hardest problem that Darwinian evolution models of syntax
need to face is how variation for syntax is offered to selection when
there is no syntax at all (Bickerton, 2000).  Here we show that simple
communication constraints in a noiseless channel can offer syntax for
free, covering a gap in innatist approaches to the origins of syntax
(Nowak and Komarova, 2001).  We support that human language is a
by-product of simple communication. 

REFERENCES

Bickerton, D.  (2000).  How protolanguage became language.  In 'The
evolutionary emergence of language', C.Knight et al.  (eds.).  Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge.  pp 264-284. 

Deacon, T.  (1997).  The symbolic species: the co-evolution of language
and the brain.  W.w.  Norton \& Company, New York. 

Deacon, T.  (2003).  Universal grammar and semiotic constraints.  In
'Language evolution', M.  Christiansen and S.  Kirby (eds.).  Oxford
University Press, Oxford.  pp.  111-139. 

Ferrer i Cancho, R.  (2003a).  Language: universals, principles and
origins.  PhD Thesis. 

Ferrer i Cancho, R.  and Sole, R.  V.  (2003b).  Least effort and the
origins of scaling in human language.  Proc.  Natl.  Acad.  Sci.  USA
100, 788-791. 

Ferrer i Cancho, R and Sole, R.  V.  and Koehler, R.  (2003c).  Patterns
in syntactic dependency networks.  Submitted to Physical Review E. 

Ferrer i Cancho, R.  (2003d).  From Zipf's law to syntactic dependency
universals.  Journal of Quantitative Linguistics.  Accepted. 
 
Hudson, R.  (1999).  Review of Terrence Deacon 'The symbolic species:
the co-evolution of language and the human brain'.  London: Penguin,
1997'.  Journal of Pragmatics. 

Hurford, J.  (1998).  Review of 'The symbolic species: the co-evolution
of language and the human brain', by Terrence Deacon (1997, Penguin
Press)'.  The Times Literary Supplement.  October.  p.  34. 

Knight, C., Studdert-Kennedy, M.  and Hurdord, J.  R.  (2000). 
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Kirby, S.  (2002).  Natural Language from Artificial Life.  Artificial
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Nowak, M.  and Komarova N.  (2001).  Towards an evolutionary theory of
language.  TRENDS in Cognitive Sciences 5, 288-195. 

Poeppel, D.  (1997).  Mind over chatter.  Nature 388, 794.