Evolution and self-organisation in vowel systems

1999 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bart de Boer
Keyword(s):  
Computer Simulations ◽  
Biological Evolution ◽  
Evolutionary Explanation ◽  
Human Language ◽  
Language Faculty ◽  
Good Communication ◽  
Vowel Systems ◽  
Self Organisation ◽  
Human Language Faculty

This paper describes computer simulations that investigate the role of self-organisation in explaining the universals of human vowel systems. It has been observed that human vowel systems show remarkable regularities, and that these regularities optimise acoustic distinctiveness and are therefore adaptive for good communication. Traditionally, universals have been explained as the result of innate properties of the human language faculty, and therefore need an evolutionary explanation. In this paper it is argued that the regularities emerge as the result of self-organisation in a population and therefore need not be the result of biological evolution. The hypothesis is investigated with two different computer simulations that are based on a population of agents that try to imitate each other as well as possible. Each agent can produce and perceive vowels in a human-like way and stores vowels as articulatory and acoustic prototypes. The aim of the agents is to imitate each other as well as possible. It will be shown that successful repertoires of vowels emerge that show the same regularities as human vowel systems.

scholarly journals Introducing the Special Issue: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Code-Switching

Languages ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 19
Author(s):  
Draško Kašćelan ◽  
Margaret Deuchar
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Code Switching ◽  
Human Language ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Language Faculty ◽  
Valuable Source ◽  
Human Language Faculty

Research on code-switching was the province of specialists in linguistics alone in the latter part of the twentieth century and is still a valuable source of insights into the human language faculty [...]

The Siege of Paris

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Berwick ◽  
Noam Chomsky
Keyword(s):  
Specific Property ◽  
Group Differences ◽  
Human Language ◽  
Language Faculty ◽  
Noam Chomsky ◽  
Species Specific ◽  
Human Language Faculty

In a response to Cedric Boeckx, Robert Berwick and Noam Chomsky defend and update their argument that the human language faculty is a species-specific property, with no known group differences and little variation.

scholarly journals How and why kinetics, thermodynamics, and chemistry induce the logic of biological evolution

2017 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 665-674 ◽  
Author(s):  
Addy Pross ◽  
Robert Pascal
Keyword(s):  
Present Report ◽  
Biological Evolution ◽  
Evolutionary Process ◽  
Second Law ◽  
Equilibrium Conditions ◽  
Chemical Systems ◽  
Dynamic Kinetic Stability ◽  
Far From Equilibrium ◽  
Self Organisation

Thermodynamic stability, as expressed by the Second Law, generally constitutes the driving force for chemical assembly processes. Yet, somehow, within the living world most self-organisation processes appear to challenge this fundamental rule. Even though the Second Law remains an inescapable constraint, under energy-fuelled, far-from-equilibrium conditions, populations of chemical systems capable of exponential growth can manifest another kind of stability, dynamic kinetic stability (DKS). It is this stability kind based on time/persistence, rather than on free energy, that offers a basis for understanding the evolutionary process. Furthermore, a threshold distance from equilibrium, leading to irreversibility in the reproduction cycle, is needed to switch the directive for evolution from thermodynamic to DKS. The present report develops these lines of thought and argues against the validity of a thermodynamic approach in which the maximisation of the rate of energy dissipation/entropy production is considered to direct the evolutionary process. More generally, our analysis reaffirms the predominant role of kinetics in the self-organisation of life, which, in turn, allows an assessment of semi-quantitative constraints on systems and environments from which life could evolve.

What is the human language faculty?: Two views

Language ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 87 (3) ◽  
pp. 586-624 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ray Jackendoff
Keyword(s):  
Human Language ◽  
Language Faculty ◽  
Human Language Faculty

Was ist das Spielerische am Sprachspiel?

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans Julius Schneider
Keyword(s):  
Natural Language ◽  
Language Games ◽  
Human Language ◽  
Language Faculty ◽  
Philosophical Investigations ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Human Language Faculty

AbstractDid Wittgenstein in coining the term ‘Sprachspiel’ mean to convey the connotation of an open playfulness, as the German terms ‘Spiel’ and ‘spielerisch’ suggest? The paper tries to show that although this was not his original motive for choosing the term, the characterization of natural language offered in the Philosophical Investigations includes and indeed highlights its open, not rule-governed (and in this sense playful) sides. In this respect language is unlike a calculus and unlike a game like chess.Wittgenstein compares language to both, but, so the paper argues, he does so in order to make visible what is special in language and is different from a calculus as well as a strictly regulated game like chess.When he applies the word ‘calculus’ in an affirmative sense for describing a feature of what he describes as language games, the context is the principle of compositionality, interpreted, however, in such a way that the difference between the workings of a calculus and the workings of language is preserved.The paper comes to the conclusion that, in using a natural language, speakers have some freedom to decide whether they cling to or depart from conventional usage. This freedom is a central ingredient of the human language faculty.

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