Videos

Bart de Boer (back)

Acoustic and perceptual effects of air sacks

The presentation discusses the role of air sacks in vocalization in early hominids and reasons for their absence in Homo sapiens.

Daniela Lenti Boero (back)

Contrasting early cry and early babbling: results from a pilot study

The authors tested the “intrinsic musicality” of the infant cry among a group of expert musicians to find, that it might induce anxiety and other negative emotions. This presentation is based on a pilot study which was conducted in order to test preference choice between early human babbling and cry in a more general public. Paper co-author: Luciana Bottoni.

Juan Carlos Moreno Cabrera (back)

The role of sound symbolism in protolanguage: some linguistic and archaeological evidence

The presentation sketches the role of sound symbolism in human protolanguage. The author shows how phenomimic or synesthetic sound relates to the cognitive fluidity phase proposed by Mithen in his evolutive model of the human mind.

Aleksandra Derra (back)

Language as a notion philosophically problematic. The case of N. Chomsky's theory

The presentation identifies selected implicit or not fully explicit assumpitons that are made by Chomsky with respect to language.

Michael W. Gillespie (back)

The mutual relevance of G. H. Mead’s social psychology and the study of language evolution

The presentation sketches the role of sound symbolism in human protolanguage. The author shows how phenomimic or synesthetic sound relates to the cognitive fluidity phase proposed by Mithen in his evolutive model of the human mind.

Tao Gong (back)

A framework triggering displacement in human language

The presentation offers a theoretical framework that could trigger displacement in protolanguage, and evaluate it in a simulation study. Paper co-authors: James W. Minett, William S-Y. Wang.

Tao Gong (back)

The necessity of computer simulation in evolutionary linguistics

The presentation addresses the necessity of adopting computer simulations in evolutionary linguistics research. It discusses the benefits of such an approach as well as the ways in which the results from computer simulations can be validated. Paper co-authors: Bernard Comrie, William S-Y. Wang.

GPH - introduction by Sławomir Wacewicz (back)

Introduction to the panel discussion regarding the Gestural Primacy Hypothesis. An overview of a broad varity of arguments made in literature in favor of different versions of gesture-first theories of language origin.

GPH - discussion (back)

A panel discussion regarding the Gestural Primacy Hypotehsis. The panelists are J. Zlatev, M. Tallerman, K. Slocombe, and the chair is J. Hurford.

James R. Hurford (back)

The contributions of storage, computation and pragmatics to the evolution of syntax

The presentation aims at explaining the falsely assumed leap from a language without combinatorial rules to a language with syntax.

Luke McCrohon (back)

The two stage life-cycle of cultural replicators

The presentation takes up the topic of cultural evolution. The author re-defines the meme as a replicator with a two-stage life-cycle and investigates the interaction between these two stages.

Ljiljana Progovac (back)

Protosyntax: a thetic (unaccusative stage)

The authors show that so called thetic statements, which could be subsumed under the “Focus Last” principle, are more primary than “Agent First” constructions. Paper co-author: Eugenia Casielles.
The handout for this presentation can be downloaded from here.

Ljiljana Progovac (back)

Compounds and commands in the evolution of language

The author argues that VN compounds (pickpocket, daredevil) constitute a protosyntactic fossil as they are difficult to account for by modern syntactic theory.
The handout for this presentation can be downloaded from here.

Rodrigo De Sá-Saraiva (back)

From ape to human, and how early language translates into archeology.

The presentation tries to show a broad view of early evolution of language based on data from mammal and primate ethology, animal learning, developmental psychology, archeology and cognitive psychology. Paper co-author: Ana Isabel De Sá-Saraiva.

Katie E. Slocombe (back)

Evolution of language: what do chimpanzees have to say?

The author presented empirical data from her recent and on-going studies on chimpanzee food-associated calls and agonistic screams.

Thomas C. Scott-Phillips (back)

The importance of pragmatics to a proper understanding of protolanguge

The author presents the ostensive-inferential model of communication and argues that a complete theory of protolanguge must account for the advent of ostensive-inferential communication and consider how the existence of ostention and inference would have impacted on the emergence of both symbols and grammar.

Maggie Tallerman (back)

Music: angel speech or pre-language of humans?

The presentation criticizes the idea of a musical protolanguage, which was resurrected in recent work by Mithen and Tecumseh Fitch.

Natalie Uomini (back)

Direct evidence for shared networks involved in the categorization of speech and body actions

Results of an experiment provide evidence for a shared network for the recognition of speech and body actions, which constitute a key component for the Gestural Origins Hypothesis. Paper co-authors: Georg Meyer , Sophie Wuerger.

Sławomir Wacewicz (back)

Philosophy in the evolution of language. The case of the HCF – PJ debate

The author shows that the Hauser-Chomsky-Fitch – Pinker-Jackendoff debate is founded on a deep terminological confusion – two mutually contradictory definitions of the opposition between the narrow and broad faculty of language (FLN – FLB).

Jordan Zlatev (back)

From (proto)mimesis to (proto)language

The author accounts for the way in which mimesis got recruited for intentional communication, basing his research on comparative studies of non-human primates and children.

Przemysław Żywiczyński (back)

From (proto)mimesis to (proto)language

The author combines the discourse analysis, proxemics and politeness theories. He presents evidence that at critical moments of interaction, conversant perform strategic distance manipulations in the space of discourse. This behavior opens speculations about the origin of linguistic politeness as an expression of territoriality and its role in the evolution of language.

The Protolang Team would like to thank UMK TV for hosting the videos