Transition to language: from agent perception to event representation

Klaus Zuberbühler*, Balthasar Bickel

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Spoken language, as we have it, requires specific capacities-at its most basic advanced vocal control and complex social cognition. In humans, vocal control is the basis for speech, achieved through coordinated interactions of larynx activity and rapid changes in vocal tract configurations. Most likely, speech evolved in response to early humans perceiving reality in increasingly complex ways, to the effect that primate-like signaling became unsustainable as a sole communication device. However, in what ways did and do humans see the world in more complex ways compared to other species? Although animal signals can refer to external events, in contrast to humans, they usually refer to the agents only, sometimes in compositional ways, but never together with patients. It may be difficult for animals to comprehend events as part of larger social scripts, with antecedent causes and future consequences, which are more typically tie the patient into the event. Human brain enlargement over the last million years probably has provided the cognitive resources to represent social interactions as part of bigger social scripts, which enabled humans to go beyond an agent-focus to refer to agent-patient relations, the likely foundation for the evolution of grammar.
Original languageEnglish
Article numbere1594
Number of pages7
JournalWIREs Cognitive Science
VolumeEarly View
Early online date31 May 2022
DOIs
Publication statusE-pub ahead of print - 31 May 2022

Keywords

  • Event perception
  • Evolution of grammar
  • Script theory
  • Theory of mind
  • Vocal learning

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