Chomsky: New on Language Evolution

[Jeremy1952]

The human factorWhat makes our species unique? A linguist and two animalresearchers band together to crack open an old chestnut.By Christine Kenneally, 1/5/2003YOU'RE AN ANIMAL. You're a land-based mammal, a vertebrate, and aprimate. Indeed, there are a thousand ways in which you resemble otheranimals. There are also a thousand ways in which you differ from them.Over the centuries scientists and natural philosophers have tried to drawlines in the sand between human and beast, only to watch the tide sweepin and wash each of these lines away.Culture was once thought to be a particularly human trait. But carefulobservation of apes demonstrated that they have culture, too. Groups ofchimps transmit learned behavior across generations; for example, somechimp groups clasp hands while they groom one another, while othergroups go hands-free. Just this week, researchers at Duke Universityannounced in the journal Science that some orangutang bands are in thehabit of blowing a "raspberry" sound, like a goodnight kiss, before they goto sleep at night, while others retire more quietly.Before culture, tool use was considered a distinctively human capacity.Again, merely watching other creatures shows that this is not the case.Chimpanzees crack nuts with a hammer and anvil; they also "fish" for antswith sticks. New Caledonian crows build tools from diverse materials liketwigs, pieces of wire, and leaves, and each tool is cleverly specialized toits task. OK, they're not building jet engines. But the fact that evennon-primates use tools proves that there's nothing distinctively humanabout the practice.One of the last refuges of the species exceptionalist is language, andindeed, human language does seem to be unique. By combining somewords with others, human beings can describe any object in the world orin our minds. We can harangue, persuade, and seduce without a touch. Noother animal's communication system uses complicated syntax and a largeset of words; we'd probably be talking to them already if they did. Whatremains controversial is this: Does our use of language stem from someinnate mental capacity that only humans possess-as linguists inspired byMIT's Noam Chomsky tend to believe? Or do we talk the way we do simplybecause our brains happen to be bigger than those of animals - asscientists who question the innateness of human language suggest?In November, Chomsky himself addressed this debate when heco-published a paper in Science with Harvard biologists Marc Hauser andW. Tecumseh Fitch. And when Chomksy speaks, people listen. Ever sincehe set forth his key thesis that language is a unique and innate property ofthe human mind in "Aspects of the Theory of Syntax" in 1965, Chomsky hasdominated his field. But if his views on language are bold, his approach tothe evolution of language has been rather cautious. To the frustration ofadmirers and critics alike, he has often sidestepped the heated debateover whether our language capacities are the result of natural selection.This article in Science, "The Faculty of Language: What Is it, Who Has It,and How Did It Evolve?", is Chomsky's first published paper on languageevolution.In the article, Chomsky endorses the comparative method used by Hauserand Fitch in their research at Harvard, which involves comparing humansand animals to see which elements of the human language system animalsmight also possess. The authors use their results to test variousevolutionary arguments about the origins of language. If an animal seemsto share an element of the language system with us, a common but nowextinct ancestor may also have had that trait. If an accumulation of datashows that no other animal possesses a particular element, it can beinferred that this element is unique to humans.For years, Chomsky's critics have complained that his theories haveenjoyed great influence without being empirically testable. But Hauser andFitch's studies on animals ranging from tamarin monkeys to swans makethe idea of a uniquely human language mechanism testable in a way ithasn't been before. While the interdisciplinary marriage between biologyand linguistics began more than 50 years ago, Hauser and Fitch point out,it hasn't yet been "fully consummated." Applying the comparative methodto linguistic theory will move the field beyond "unproductive theoreticaldebate" and more firmly into the empirical domain.A recent study by Hauser and Fitch, for example, clearly shows thathumans aren't the only species with one aspect of language ability:rhythm. Tamarins, tiny primates that roam the forests of the Amazonbasin, can tell the difference between languages like Japanese and Dutchbased on different rhythmic cues. Of course, tamarins have no real need todistinguish between Japanese and Dutch. If we share a sensitivity tolinguistic rhythm with these monkeys, then we probably didn't evolve thatsensitivity for the specific purpose of understanding or producing speech,even though that's what we now use it for.A classic 1980 study on vervet monkeys in Africa suggested that humansaren't the only species to use "words"-or at least, to employ distinctvocalizations that seem to refer to discrete entities. For example, when avervet uttered one cry, dubbed eagle, its companions would scan the skies.At the cry for leopard, they would scramble to the top of a nearby tree.Since then, researchers also claim to have discovered animal "words" inuse among other kinds of monkeys, as well as among meerkats, prairiedogs, dogs, and even chickens. But in their paper, Chomsky, Hauser, andFitch suggest that recent analysis casts doubt on the suggestion that theseword-like cries are precursors to human words. It may be that they aretruly referential only in the mind of the listener.Chomksy and his co-authors distinguish the human from the nonhuman byproposing a two-part model of language, consisting of a broad faculty oflanguage (FLB) and a narrow faculty of language (FLN). The broad faculty oflanguage consists of features we share with other animals, such as themotor-sensory system-the collection of nerves, muscles, and organs thatenable us to see, hear and touch the world around us and move within it.The physical characteristics we use to create and interpret speech, fromour agility of tongue to our ability to interpret stress and pitch, have ananalog in at least some other animals.The broad faculty of language also includes what Hauser and colleaguescall the conceptual-intentional system. This system is made up of acreature's knowledge of the world and its capacity to use that knowledgeto form intentions and act upon them. Animals are not just unthinkingbundles of nerves and muscle. Recent experiments have shown that theyunderstand the world in complicated ways-some birds use the sky andlandmarks to help them navigate complex paths; other animals, likemonkeys, recognize and can use in varying degrees abstract ideas likecolor, number, and geometric relationships. Many different species canuse mirrors to locate objects, and some, like chimps, bonobos, andorangutans, appear to recognize their own reflections. Chimpanzees evenappear to have what psychologists call a theory of mind; that is, they caninfer from a person's or a fellow chimp's actions what that creature isthinking-another capacity that has long been held to belong to humansalone.By contrast, Chomsky and his coauthors argue that the narrow faculty oflanguage is indeed uniquely human, and in its barest form, consists of asingle syntactic mechanism, called recursion. Recursion is the process bywhich any sentence can be made infinitely long by being embedded inanother sentence. "Chomsky thinks that Hauser thinks that Fitch thinks thatlanguage is unique" may be a long and ultimately pointless kind ofsentence, but it can be made longer still by putting "Mary thinks that..."before it. This process of embedding could go on forever.The fact that human brains can take a set of entities, like words, andcreate an open-ended pattern with them, like a sentence, makes humanlanguage limitless. Most important, this recursive mechanism allows us toexpress complicated thoughts. We're not just stuck at one level ofobservation or knowledge; we can see-and say-not just that "He knows,"but that "She knows that he knows." Each level of recursion is a stepupward in complexity.Other animals may have a rich understanding of the world but no way toconvey it. It was when humans connected their internal understandingswith a means to express them-when they began using recursion tocommunicate -that they gained their unique form of language. "Whenthose things got married," says Hauser, "the world was changed."Chomsky has been talking about the construction of infinitely longrecursive sentences from the beginning. He has also long emphasized akindred notion that recursion probably goes beyond language and is vitalto human cognition more broadly. After all, as the Science article pointsout, recursion is characteristic of the number system as well as thegrammatical system. Just as "Mary thinks that..." could be added to anysentence, "2 x" could be added to any equation, no matter how long italready is.But where did this capacity come from? If recursion isn't specific tolanguage, then it's possible that our brain's ability to use recursion did notfirst evolve in order to improve our ability to communicate. Perhaps,Chomsky and his coauthors say, it was initially used for navigating socialrelationships and was then co-opted by language. Chimpanzees havehighly complicated social systems; so they must remember-without thehelp of language-who among them is dominant and who is not.Prelinguistic humans may have faced similar challenges and solved themwith mental recursion. Chomksy, Hauser, and Fitch do not suggest whenthese abilities may have first come together to create language, but onepopular theory suggests it may have been sometime in the last 50,000 to100,000 years.Chomsky, Hauser, and Fitch further suggest that certain components of thefaculty of language may have arisen as spandrels, a term first used byStephen Jay Gould to mean a byproduct rather than an end product ofnatural selection. In this scenario, language may be what makes us special,but its creation was no more purposeful or adaptive than a poodle's floppyears.Steven Pinker, a psychologist and linguist at MIT and the well-knownauthor of "The Language Instinct," describes himself as basicallysympathetic to the idea of a narrow and broad faculty of language, but hefinds the notion of language as a spandrel "quite eccentric." "If languagewas really just a by-product," says Pinker, "one wonders why there wouldbe such an amazingly good fit between it and the rest of what makes us sounique"-for example, the fact that we learn a lot, know a lot, and are ahighly social species.Other researchers are more critical of the Chomskian position in general.Philip Lieberman, a linguist at Brown University who has written manybooks on language evolution, questions the notion that recursion itself isdistinctively human. Lieberman believes that motor control, rather than anabstract mental mechanism, is the foundation of recursion. In his view,walking is fundamentally related to talking. "When we take a step, weexecute a sequence of discrete motor commands that are eachrepresented in the brain by a pattern-generator," he says. "We couldreiterate a novel sequence of steps if we dance on to eternity-producingnovel dance 'sentences' that had the same property as the infinitely longsentences that linguists take to be the mark of creativity of humanlanguage."Rather than being a recent innovation without precedent in animalbehavior, basic recursion in this model is an ancient trait common to manyanimals. After all, neural circuits that regulate walking, manualmovements, and speech share common brain structures in humans. Thesestructures are in the subcortical basal ganglia, antique parts of the brainthat were present in the first mammal, and go back as far as our reptilianforebears.Irene Maxine Pepperberg, a visiting professor at the MIT Media Lab whohas taught a language-like code to an African gray parrot named Alex, alsosuspects that recursion has more ancient roots. She describes Alex as "acreature whose connections with humans likely go back to the dinosaurs,"and points out that he can comprehend and respond to sentences that userecursion. Experiments with dolphins and sea-lions have shown similarabilities.According to Hauser, these animals have never been shown to producerecursion. But this, says Pepperberg, may just be a matter of time. As anyparent knows, understanding language comes before speaking, sowhether animals will one day become capable of producing recursivestatements remains to be seen.It's going to be a while before the mounting evidence for and againstthese theories can be called conclusive. A complete definition of languagehas been notoriously elusive, and the field of language evolution is notone burdened by empirical evidence. There are no nouns trapped inamber, and ancient recursive sentences don't fossilize. "The fossil recordis too limited, too weak," says Hauser. "The only way to get at theseanswers is comparative."There are few goals that will prove more enticing to researchers in thecoming years than working out whether language truly is both innate inand unique to humans: Proving Chomsky's ideas of the 1960s have becomea modern linguistic holy grail. Lieberman believes the quest to prove auniquely human language mechanism will fail. But what if it succeeds? Thetrue import may be more emotional than scientific. For some it will meanthat our hubris is justified, that we humans are as special as we think weare. But for others, it will mean something quite different: we'll never have a sophisticated conversation with an animal, and are therefore more alonein our own minds than we think.This story ran on page D1 of the Boston Globe on 1/5/2003.

[rielmajr]

I am a bit surprised that no one has picked up on this fascinating little article. But, then, the French Academy proscribed papers on the origins of language, as I recall, around the beginning of the 20th Century: a damnable topic that is both rich with tendrils of thought that radiate out in a frenzy but without much possibility of being tested a la Karl Popper's accepted standard for a proposition to be properly scientific.One correction to the article: intentionality has never referred to the ability to form an intention to carry out an idea but rather denotes the reference of a concept. Acquinas would get mighty upset over this use of the term.The idea of recursion being the delineator of human language versus what might pass as language in other animals is interesting: it connects with some ideas about human consciousness, that there are neural loops that monitor the loops attending to the external world as well as our inner world.

[Chris OConnor]

JeremyI just got around to reading this article and am glad I did. Last night we were all talking about the possibility of reading and discussing a different journal article each month in addition to our regular readings, and I'm wondering if you and Zach were thinking of articles such as this one. let me know, because this stuff is fascinating to me.Here is something to think about. I recently learned that one of my best friends has an aunt that is one of the top primate scientists in the world. He called me on the phone a few weeks ago while she was visiting, told me about her, and then gave the phone to her so we could talk for a bit. She works with Bonobo chimps and has coauthored numerous books...all focusing on chimp linguistics. It was a fun conversation as you can imagine.Chris

[LanDroid]

Linguistics is one thing, but is anyone interested in Chomsky's political views? They are quite interesting in that he has a detailed command of American history including information that the media ignores or represses. Chomsky also scours declassified documents to come up with new unreported information.Here's an example.Chomsky's politics are also infuriating, focusing on American wrongs and ignoring or excusing crimes committed by totalitarian states. Here's a blistering commentary that I ran across..Quote: Disappointed with Noam...by Daniel Yonts Monday December 30, 2002 at 07:00 [email protected] There was a time when Noam's support of totalitarian propaganda and anti-American rhetoric offered a refreshing glimpse into existential absurdity. He offered a portrait of something unique to the academic elite-- providing aspiring intellectuals with a sense of pride in their own self-loathing and nausea. A mixture of Sarte's failed identity and nightmares of Nietzsche, he was once the "noble philosopher" of all that is neurotic, half-formed and ill-received. Upon further education in the art of totalitarian propaganda, having explored the state-run media of Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Mideast (inspired by 9/11)-- I've discovered that what I took as unique was, in reality, a rehash of a third-rate Information Ministry. As a proud American, I can respect the opinions (no matter how flawed) and perspectives of free men and women. I do not require that every thinker have the political convictions of a Thomas Paine or Ayn Rand. I am saddened, however, when an American is unable to surpass the quality of rhetoric and conspiracy theories produced by a generic totalitarian sychophant in Pakistan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia or Syria. Sure, Noam didn't have the benefit of being indoctrinated into the culture of hate, intolerance, irrationality and non-accountability that is the trademark of totalitarian societies. Living in a society where you won't get killed for offering an opinion (unlike Nigeria, Iraq, etc) contrary to the government's is a disadvantage, to be sure. But the spirit of America is the ability of individuals to overcome these disadvantages and to rise to the top of one's chosen field. Noam, unfortunately, has disappointed his American heritage by being a second-rate Totalitarian Sychophant - an "also-ran" in an effort to disgrace the American values of freedom, self-determination and individual accountability. I expected more from a fellow American.

[Timothy Schoonover]

My experience with "Chomskism" is not that extensive, but what little contact I have had is uncharacteristic of the above review. I honestly do not know how Chomsky can be construed as pro-totalitarian. He is strongly supportive of democracy and highly critical of institution...critical to the point that he is more similar an anarchist than a totalitarian.What is more likely, perhaps, is that the above reviewer has mistaken Chomski's denunciation of American foreign policy, American media, public involvement in the political decision making process, and the inequitable distribution of wealth and power in the economy as 'anti-american' and thus obviously supportive of 'anti-american' values. To me, Chomski is no more pro-totalitarian than George Orwell.Is there anyone here who is remotely conversive on Chomski's theory of Generative Linguistics and its relation to those 'damnable' french theories? I have been, of late, attempting to educate myself on the topic, and that is no small endeavor.

[Chris OConnor]

TimI'm not very familiar with Chomsky.Chris

[cinnamon321]

Right now I'm trying to finish up Pinker's The Language Instinct. I read Pinker's The Blank Slate. Lots of references to Chomsky. I'd be interested to learn more about his linguistic and political theories. It's really hard to tell if language is a uniquely human thing or if other organisms have it as well. The human brain, being extremely complicated must have some innate faculties for language eg (Broca's area and Wernicke's area, etc...the primary auditory cortex). But being that our species shares some of its ancestry with other species I wouldn't doubt if some of the faculties for language had some form in other species, though their language systems may not be as complex as ours. Otherwise, I cannot see how it can be explained that Koko the gorilla and other primates can learn sign language and teach it to their offspring. To me that is evidence of language in a rudimentary form. Language could be something that we are "wired" for or it could be that our brains just have the right design for language to emerge as a cultural tool. But seeing that ALL human cultures have some form of language and that homo sapiens haven't been in existence for millions of years like cockroaches have, I would say that other animals share some capacity for language and a rudimentary form of syntax and grammar. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

[Timothy Schoonover]

I tend to think that the nurture vs. nature dilemna is best expressed as a dialectic relationship between our biological makeup and the environment we exist in. I don't think that you can really isolate one from the other as base and derivative in a noncomplex manner. I'm not really sure where Chomsky or Pinker stand on this issue. From the sound of it, they seem to hold that there is some universal, fundamental, and biologically predetermined language mechanism. If this were in fact the case, then those 'damnable' french theories (i.e. postmodernism) might be forced to reevaluate their stance that language is a complex milieu of arbitrary associations and differentiations, and its ability to mould individual consciousness. Whether or not the affirmation of Chomsky and Pinker spells defeat for postmodernism remains to be seen, although in my opinion theories such as Generative Linguistics should prove problematic.

[cinnamon321]

I don't know that much about those damnable French theories (From what little I know about postmodernism it seems overly flowery and airy to me.) but what I do agree with you on this: "I tend to think that the nurture vs. nature dilemna is best expressed as a dialectic relationship between our biological makeup and the environment we exist in. I don't think that you can really isolate one from the other as base and derivative in a noncomplex manner."Pinker and Chomsky should at least poke holes in postmodernism and make it leak a little. I disagree with the ability of language to mold the individual consciousness unless one is talking about ideas that mold your ethics and choices. But I think that's more of a sociobiological question rather than completely a linguistic one. (do either ideas or words mold ethics and choices) I would rather think that people affect words (eg. we determine the meaning and context of the word and how it is interpreted via sender and reciever), rather than words affect people. It's more about how people affect each other's minds rather than how words affect our minds. Organisms existed way before language as we know it did.

[Timothy Schoonover]

After researching Chomsky's political persuation a little further, I again feel obligated to denounce the views of the above commenter cited in Landroids post. There are those who oppose Chomsky on the basis of legitimate philosophical differences and then there are those who oppose him, as far as I can honestly discern, on the basis of a complete misunderstanding of his position. I feel Danial Yonts is indefensibly a member of the latter category. Again I am not fully versed in Chomsky's political ideas, and concede that in ignorance I may prematurely absolve him, but I feel that what I do know of his beliefs is enough to exonerate him from the above charges and demonstrate the absurdity that he is in any way supportive of fascism.First of all, I will state that I am sympathetic towards Marxism and so, I think, is Chomky, although to what extent I am uncertain. Having said that, do not make the mistake of assuming that Marxism is synomymous with Stalinist Socialism or the even graver mistake of thinking it to be a form of totalitarianism or fascism. In other words, although I hope this obviation is unnecessary, it would be silly to try and play the 'red card.'Chomsky advocates democracy, that is, he affirms that in matters of government, supreme power ought to be retained and directly exercised by the people or their representatives. Sounds pretty typical so far right, so where's the catch? Well, Chomsky argues that since at least the 1930's (arguably since the ratification of the constitution itself) the prevailing executive interpretation of democracy has differed from the one most people believe. In this alternative view of democracy, the citizenry are too ignorant, capricious and feebleminded to reliably govern themselves and are therefore excluded from meaningful decision making processes. After all, they'd just cause trouble. So an intellectual class develops and competes amongst themselves for the right to sheperd the 'bewildered herd' of common folk and prevent them from trampling about in ignorant rage. But in addition to the intellectual class and the common folk is a business class with real power and real organisation and a proven record for exploiting workers and government officials alike in the pursuit of profit. What this amounts to is an intellectual class, of which a subset function in an executive capacity, that believe in and legislate for the power to control the mass population as they deem fit, and a business class which strongly influences the values of the intellectual class by selectively supporting members that share their values.However, the commonwealth far outnumber those that govern them, and, as all classes, angle for their own priviledge. This tendency is problematic for those democrats that believe power in the hands of the masses is a formula for disaster and the business owners who benefit from an endless sea of disenfranchized consumers and laborers, so steps must be taken in order ensure that the greater public does not rise up in action against their wise and benevolent overlords. But how does one control such an unruly and barbaric mob? According to Chomsky this has been done through the effective use of a ubiquitous propaganda machine of manufactured consent. Simply put, the powers that be engender fear, alienation, and diversion into the culture of the masses thereby preventing them from organizing, let alone realizing that others share their dissatisfaction with the prevailing structure of power. It keeps them pre-occupied with trivialities such as Superbowls, celebrities, commercial entertainment, and elections, and, when necessary, it whips them into a frothing rage of indignation and fear of some horribly exaggerated 'immanent danger' that is subsequently annihilated while good ol' boys and girls happily tie yellow ribbons to trees, affix miniature flags to their cars and chant 'support our troops' while viciously condemning all those who oppose their demonstrably vacuous concerns for ideas like Americanism, harmony, freedom to say nothing of the smoke and mirror rhetoric that is human rights, democracy, and peace. This "complex structure of social perception which ensures that the situation in which one class has power over the others is seen as 'natural' or not seen at all" (Marxist Literary Criticism, Terry Eagleton 5) eviscerates our ability alter the situation.In fascist societies, power is retained and consent is procured by the tip of a gun barrel or the end of a bludgeon, but in America it is bashed into the brows of the public by a pervasive system of propaganda. You may or may not believe this. It's nothing really new, just a new spin on marxist ideology and false consciousness. I personally find it particularly compelling, but I'm one of those disgusting liberals trying to sneak red ideas through the back door. Your mileage may vary. Edited by: Timothy Schoonover at: 5/6/03 11:28:30 pm