In:How the Brain Got Language – Towards a New Road Map:
Edited by Michael A. Arbib
[Benjamins Current Topics 112] 2020
► pp. 370–387
The comparative neuroprimatology 2018 (CNP-2018) road map for research on How the Brain Got Language
Published online: 11 August 2020
https://doi.org/10.1075/bct.112.23arb
https://doi.org/10.1075/bct.112.23arb
Abstract
We present a new road map for research on “How the Brain Got Language” that adopts an EvoDevoSocio perspective and highlights
comparative neuroprimatology – the comparative study of brain, behavior and communication in extant
monkeys and great apes – as providing a key grounding for hypotheses on the last common ancestor of humans and monkeys (LCA-m)
and chimpanzees (LCA-c) and the processes which guided the evolution LCA-m → LCA-c → protohumans → H.
sapiens. Such research constrains and is constrained by analysis of the subsequent, primarily cultural, evolution
of H. sapiens which yielded cultures involving the rich use of language.
Article outline
- An overall perspective
- Aspects of language to be explained
- Language is a special form of communication
- Lexicon and grammar
- The endless aboutness of language
- Social structure and the motivation to converse
- Action, gesture and language
- Language is a special form of communication
- Methodologies
- Neurophysiology and comparative neuroanatomy
- Behavior, social structure and communication
- Archeology
- High-level theory
- Modeling and mechanism
- Genetics
- Road map preliminaries
- Establishing the “Stages”
- In search of precise terminology
- Beyond the primates
- The CNP-2018 road map
- Capabilities of LCA-m
- Capabilities of LCA-c
- Hominins prior to Homo sapiens
- Post-biological evolution in Homo sapiens
- Envoi
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