The book "The Man Talking. Evolution and language "

Human language is a unique communication system that only Homo sapiens has. Why and, most importantly, why did we learn to talk? Why are any of us in our early childhood easily and naturally assimilating our native language, and learning foreign languages ​​is not easy? Did the Neanderthal language exist, did our ancestors ever talk to them? What is the hypothesis of linguistic relativity and how is it
affect our understanding of human nature? Answers to these and many other questions can be found in the book of Noam Chomsky - the greatest, eccentric and indomitable linguist of our time - written in collaboration with Robert Berwick, an expert in artificial intelligence.

Chapter 2. The evolution of biolinguistics

Before discussing language, especially in the context of biology, it should be clarified how we understand this term. Sometimes the term “language” is used to designate a human language, sometimes to refer to any symbolic system or method of communication or representation (for example, when it comes to the language of bees, programming languages ​​or the language of the heavenly bodies). We will adhere to the first definition and note that the study of the human language as an object of the biological world has been called the biolinguistic perspective.

Among the many questions about the language of the most important - two. First, why do languages ​​exist at all, and only in humans? (In evolutionary biology, such a phenomenon is called autoapomorphy.) Secondly, why are there so many languages? These are basic questions about the origin and diversity that interested Darwin and other evolutionary thinkers and which form the basis of modern biology (why is there such a series of life forms in the world, and not some other?). From this point of view, the science of language fits perfectly into the modern biological tradition, despite the seeming abstraction of its details.

Most paleoanthropologists and archaeologists agree that both of the voiced questions are quite fresh by the standards of evolutionary time. About 200,000 years ago, none of them would have come to mind, because there were no languages ​​yet. And about 60,000 years ago, the answers to them would be the same as now. At that time, our ancestors migrated from Africa and began to spread throughout the planet, and since, as far as we know, language ability has not changed in principle (which is not surprising for such a short period). Specifying more accurate dates will not work, but for our purposes they are not particularly important, because in general, the picture looks true. Another important point: if you take a baby born in Amazonia, in an Indian tribe, which is stuck at the level of the Stone Age in its development, and transport it to Boston, then by language and other cognitive functions you cannot distinguish it from local children, whose pedigree can be traced. up to the first English colonists. The reverse is also true. The uniformity of language ability inherent in our species (the so-called language ability) convinces us that this sign of anatomically modern man should have existed by the time our ancestors left Africa and settled around the world. Erik Lenneberg (Lenneberg, 1967: 261) also drew attention to this fact. As far as we know, in addition to cases of pathology, language ability is inherent in the entire human population.
')
Moreover, since ancient times, about which written evidence has been preserved, to this day, the fundamental parametric properties of the human language remain the same, the variation occurs only within the established limits. For example, when forming passive structures like The apple was eaten (“The apple was eaten”), no language uses the position account so that the passive indicator is placed, say, after the third position in a sentence. This fact is consistent with the findings of a recent tomographic study (Musso et al., 2003). Unlike any machine language, human languages ​​allow dislocation (displacement): a phrase can be interpreted in one place, and pronounced in another, as in the sentence What did John guess? (“What did John guess?”). This property results from the join operation. The sounds of all human languages ​​are built from a finite, fixed inventory or basic set of articulation gestures — such as, for example, vibrations of the vocal cords that distinguish the sound “b” from “n”, although not in all languages ​​“b” and “n” are different. Simply put, languages ​​can make different “orders” from the structural menu available to them all, but this “menu” itself is unchanged. It is possible to adequately model the variability of such a choice * using simple models based on dynamic systems. This is demonstrated by Niyogi & Berwick (2009), modeling the transition of the English language from word order as in German (with a verb at the end of a sentence) to more modern. However, such language changes should not be confused with the evolution of the language as such.

Thus, in the center of our attention is a curious biological object - a language that appeared on earth not so long ago. This species-specific property without significant differences (except in cases of severe pathology) is inherent in all people. Language, in fact, is not like anything else in the organic world and has played a crucial role in human life since its inception. This is the central component of what Alfred Russell Wallace, the founder (along with Darwin) of modern evolutionary theory, called "the mental and moral nature of man" (Wallace, 1871: 334). It is about the abilities of a person to creative imagination, language, and in general to the symbolism, recording and interpretation of natural phenomena, complex social practices, etc. This complex is sometimes called human capacity (human capacity). It took shape quite recently in a small group of inhabitants of East Africa, whose descendants are all of us, and distinguishes modern man from other animals, which has enormous consequences for the entire biological world. It is believed that the emergence of language has played a major role in this sudden and colossal transformation (note that this idea sounds quite plausible). In addition, language is one of the components of human abilities that is available for in-depth study. This is another reason why even purely linguistic studies actually intersect with biolinguistics, although they seem far from biology.

From a biolinguistic point of view, language can be represented as an “organ of the body” (on a par with the visual, digestive, or immune systems). Like them, language is a subcomponent of a complex organism, possessing considerable internal integrity, so it must be studied separately from its complex interactions with other systems in the organism's life cycle. In this case, language is a cognitive organ, as are planning, interpretation, reflection (reflection) systems, etc., with characteristics called mental and reduced to “organic brain structure,” as Josef Priestley, a scientist and the philosopher of the eighteenth century (Priestley, 1775/1968: 131) *. Priestley formulated this conclusion after Newton, to his own amazement, demonstrated that the world is not a machine at all, contrary to the main points of the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century **. This conclusion effectively eliminated the traditional dualism of soul and body, because the clear concept of “(physical) body” or “matter” that existed in the XVIII – XIX centuries disappeared. Language can be perceived as a mental organ, and the word “mental” simply indicates certain characteristics of the world that can be studied in the same way as chemical, optical, electrical properties, hoping to finally bring the results together. However, we note that in the listed areas of science such an association was often achieved in completely unexpected ways and not necessarily by reduction.

As stated at the beginning of the chapter, two obvious questions about language arise. Why does language exist at all, and only in humans? And why are there many languages? It is also of interest, why languages ​​“differ from each other infinitely and unpredictably,” that as a result one should approach the study of each language “without any ready-made diagram indicating what the language should be”? We quoted more than half a century ago words belonging to the outstanding linguist theorist Martin Yeos (Joos, 1957: v, 96). Jos summarized the dominant "Boasian tradition," as he successfully called it, referring to the works of one of the founders of modern anthropology and anthropological linguistics, Franz Boas. The publication Methods of Structural Linguistics (Methods in Structural Linguistics) by Zellig Harris (Harris, 1951), which laid the foundation for American structural linguistics of the 1950s, contained the word “methods” in the title just because there was little that was said about the language (besides methods that reduce the limitless variety of language material to an organized form). European structuralism had a lot in common with American. So, similar in concept was the classic introduction to the phonological analysis created by Nikolai Trubetskoy (Trubetskoy, 1939/1960). Generally speaking, the attention of structuralists was almost entirely focused on phonology and morphology — linguistic levels at which its wide and complex diversity manifests itself. This question is of great interest, and we will return to it.

In general biology, at about the same time, a similar point of view prevailed. It is expressed, for example, by molecular biologist Gunter Stent. He notes that the variability of organisms is so free that it forms "almost an infinite number of special cases, each of which should be considered separately" (Stent, 1984: 569–570).

In fact, both in general biology and in linguistics, the problem of compromise between unity and diversity arose constantly. Studies of the language, which were conducted during the scientific revolution of the XVII century, established a distinction between general (universal) and private grammar (although the meaning of this difference was not exactly the same as in the framework of the modern biolinguistic approach). The general grammar was called the intellectual core of this discipline, and private grammars were considered as unimportant, random incarnations of the universal system. With the flourishing of anthropological linguistics, the pendulum has swung in the other direction - towards diversity, which is well reflected in the Boas definition quoted above. Within the framework of general biology, the problem in question was vividly discussed in the famous controversy between naturalists Georges Cuvier and Geoffroy St. Hilaire in 1830. Cuvier's point of view, which emphasized diversity, won out (especially in the light of the Darwinian revolution). This led to the conclusions about the “almost infinite set” of special cases that need to be considered separately. Probably the most often quoted statement by biologists is the final words of Darwinian's "Origin of Species" about how "from such a simple beginning an infinite number of the most beautiful and most amazing forms developed and continues to develop" (Darwin, 1859/1991: 419). Evolutionary biologist Sean Carroll put Darwin's expression into the title of his book (Carroll, 2005/2015) - an introduction to the “new science evo-devo”, or evolutionary developmental biology, which seeks to show that evolving forms are far from infinite and even very uniform.

To reconcile the observed diversity of organic forms with their obvious deep uniformity (why we observe just such a series of living organisms, and not some other one, and just such a number of languages ​​/ grammars, and not any other), the three interacting factors formulated by the biologist Mono allow The book "Accident and necessity" (Le hasard et la nécessité) (Monod, 1970).

The first factor is the historically conditioned circumstance that we are all descendants of a single tree of life and, therefore, we have a common ancestry with all other living beings, whose diversity exhausts, apparently, only an insignificant share of all sorts of biological outcomes. Therefore, it should not be surprising that we have common genes, biochemical pathways of metabolism and much more with other organisms.

The second factor is the physical and chemical limitations of our world, which narrow the range of biological possibilities. For example, it is almost unbelievable that wheels form for our movement, because it is physically difficult to bring nerves and blood flow to a rotating object.

The third factor is the screening effect of natural selection, which, of the previously known “menu” of possibilities given by historical circumstances and physico-chemical constraints, leaves only the number of organisms that we observe in the outside world. Note that the effect of the limited “menu” of options is extremely important. If the list of options is extremely narrow, then there is little to choose from which (it’s not surprising that a person at a fast food restaurant usually orders a hamburger and fries). As Darwin would have said about this, natural selection is not the only means by which nature has acquired its present form. “In addition, I am convinced that natural selection was the most important, but not the only means of modification” (Darwin, 1859/1991: 24).

Recent discoveries have breathed new life into the general approach of Darcy Thompson (D'Arcy Thompson, 1917/1942) and Alan Turing (Turing, 1952) to the principles limiting the diversity of organisms. According to Wardlaw (1953: 43), true biological science should consider each "living organism as a special kind of system to which the general laws of physics and chemistry apply," which sharply limit the possible diversity of organisms and fix their fundamental properties. Such a point of view no longer looks extreme today, after the discovery of master genes, deep homology, conservation, and much more, up to such severe restrictions on the evolution / development processes that “reproduction of the protein film of life can be surprisingly monotonous.” In this quotation from the review article of Pulwayka and co-authors (Poelwijk et al., 2006) on permissible mutation paths, Stephen Gould's famous metaphor is rethought, in which the film of life, if reproduced again, can follow new routes. As Michael Lynch further notes (Lynch, 2007: 67), “for many decades it was known that all eukaryotes mostly share the same genes for transcription, translation, replication, nutrient intake, basic metabolism, cytoskeleton structure, etc. Why, when it comes to development, do we expect to see something else? ”

In a review article on “evolutional devo”, Gerd Muller (Müller, 2007: 947) notices how much more thoroughly we approached the understanding of the patterns of forming patterns like the Turing machine:

“Generalized forms ... arise as a result of the interaction of the basic properties of the cell with various mechanisms of patterning. Differential adhesion and polarity of the cell, changing under the influence of different types of physical and chemical mechanisms of patterning, form standard sets ... The properties of differential adhesion and their polar distribution on the cell surface result in combination with a diffusion gradient to hollow spheres, and in combination with a deposition gradient - to spheres with invaginated ... The combination of differential adhesion with the reaction-diffusion mechanism gives rise to radial-periodic structures, and its combination with chemical oscillation gives the series but-periodic structure. The organisms of ancient animals with their structure reflect the action of such standard sets of patterns of pattern formation. ”

For example, in explaining the historically determined fact that we have five fingers and toes, it would be more correct to refer to the process of the development of the fingers than to the optimality of the number five for their functioning.

According to the controversial biochemist Michael Sherman (Sherman, 2007: 1873), "a universal genome encoding all major development programs in various types of animals (Metazoa) appeared in a single-cell or primitive multicellular organism shortly before the beginning of the Cambrian period" (about 500 million years ago ), when there was a sudden surge of diversity of complex animal forms. Sherman further argues that many “types of animals that have similar genomes are nevertheless so different because each of them uses its own particular combination of development programs” (Sherman, 2007: 1875). In accordance with this interpretation (if to think abstractly), there is only one type of multicellular animals. Such a point of view could hold, say, a Martian scientist - a representative of a highly developed civilization, contemplating events on Earth. Surface diversity may in part be the result of various combinations of the developmental-genetic toolkit, as it is sometimes called, preserved by the evolution of the genetic toolkit. If such ideas prove to be true, then the problem of unity and diversity can be reformulated in a completely unexpected way for some modern scholars. The extent to which this conservative “toolbox” may be the only explanation for the observed uniformity is a matter worthy of attention. As it was said, the observed uniformity arises partly for the reason that too little time has passed and the continuity of generations proportional to this amount of time makes it impossible for us to study the “too big” genetic-protein-morphological space (especially considering the impossibility of “returning” and starting the search with very beginning to achieve the best results). , «» (Baupläne), (Stephen Gould). , , , , .

. (Thomas Huxley), , , , , « », « » (Huxley, 1878/1893: 223). « », « » (1868). « » ( — , « -»). , , , « » ( , , , , , , , ). , « » , , « » (, 1859/1991: 28).

1, XX , , , , , . , (Monod), - .
: , , , ? , ( ) , . , , . . , , (Hauser, 1997), . , — . , . , .

«» «» - . « » (Lewontin, 2001: 79) , , . , . ( ), , , - . . , , (Burling, 1993: 25). , , , (calls), , , , « , -, ».

, , , ( , . .). . , . ( , ). (Jerison, 1977: 55) , « … , … », « ». , — , , — , , .

But how then did this strange object appear in the biological record, moreover, in the close framework of evolution? There is, of course, no exact answer, but you can sketch a couple of quite plausible assumptions that are related to the latest research in biolinguistics.

, — . (Tattersall, 1998: 59) , « , », . « , — , — , » ( , ). , , 100 , , « , , — — , » (Striedter, 2006: 10). 1 , , 4.

(Tattersall, 2006: 72), « — — -, . , - », « … … , [] , », . , , *, , . - — — , , , (Tattersall, 1998, 2002, 2006).

, ? , . , , , - ( — , , — ). , , - ( ) , , . — , , — . — « », , 30 50 . — , . : , « » , , ( ) ( , ). , 1. , , — «, - ». , , .

, 80 000 ( — ). , ( ). « -» . , . — ( ). — , - (, ). : - . 10 000 «» , , — . , — (Colosimo et al., 2004, 2005; Orr, 2005a).

( 1). , — - , , , () ( , «» , , -, ). , , , ( ). . 1, — , «» (Gehring, 2005).

(1961), (E. coli) , , (Jacob, 1982: 290): « , ». , «-»-, , , , . , -, . , . , , .

, , « -». , , , , , . (1977: 26) , , « » , « , … , , ». , , , (Chomsky, 1980: 67).

, , . , , , , . , , (head initial), ( ; .: read books (« »)), (head final), ( hon-o yomimasu (.: « »)). , , , ( ).

: , , , . , 25 , . , , : , , ( ), , . , , . , , , . , , , , (core) . , , ( ).

( , ) , . , . . , , — (phrase structure grammar). 1950- . . ( ) ( ) , (embedding). , , ( , , ).

— , (X Y) , ( X Y). (Merge). , , , . , « ».

(Strong Minimalist Thesis, ) , , , . ( ), , . - « + = ?» (Sauerland & Gärtner, 2007).

. , , . , . - , , . — , , , , . , (Hinzen, 2006), , , , . , - .

, , . , , , . , , - . , , (Lewontin, 1998).

, , , , . , , , , . , . ( , ), .

»More information about the book can be found on the publisher site.
» Table of Contents
» Excerpt

20% —