Neurolinguistic Evolution: BBS Call for Commentators

Stevan Harnad (harnad@PRINCETON.EDU)
Sun, 3 Apr 1994 19:12:07 EDT

This article has been accepted for publication in Behavioral and Brain
Sciences (BBS), an international, interdisciplinary journal providing
Open Peer Commentary on important and controversial current research in
the biobehavioral and cognitive sciences.

Commentators must be current BBS Associates or nominated by a current
BBS Associate. To be considered as a commentator for this article, to
suggest other appropriate commentators, or for information about how to
become a BBS Associate, please send email to:

harnad@clarity.princeton.edu or harnad@pucc.bitnet or write to:
BBS, 20 Nassau Street, #240, Princeton NJ 08542 [tel: 609-921-7771]

To help us put together a balanced list of commentators, please give
some indication of the aspects of the topic on which you would bring
your areas of expertise to bear if you were selected as a commentator.
An electronic draft of the full text is available for inspection by
anonymous ftp according to the instructions that follow after the abstract.
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BRAIN EVOLUTION AND NEUROLINGUISTIC PRECONDITIONS

Wendy K. Wilkins
Department of English
Arizona State University
Tempe, AZ 85287-0302
atwkw@asuacad.bitnet

Jennie Wakefield
Department of Speech and Hearing
Arizona State University
Tempe, AZ 85287-1908
asjxd@asuacad.bitnet

ABSTRACT: This target article presents a plausible evolutionary
scenario for the emergence of the neural preconditions for language
in the hominid lineage. In pleistocene primate lineages there was a
paired evolutionary expansion of frontal and parietal neocortex
(through certain well-documented adaptive changes associated with
manipulative behaviors) resulting, in ancestral hominids, in an
incipient Broca's region and in a configurationally unique junction
of the parietal, occipital, and temporal lobes of the brain (the
POT). On our view, the development of the POT in our ancestors
resulted in the neuroanatomical substrate consistent with the
ability for representations in modality-neutral association cortex
and, as a result of structure-imposing interaction with Broca's
area, the hierarchically structured "conceptual structure." Evidence
from paleoneurology and comparative primate neuroanatomy is used to
argue that Homo habilis (2.5-2 million years ago) was the first
hominid to have the appropriate gross neuroanatomical configuration
to support conceptual structure. We thus suggest that the neural
preconditions for language are met in H. habilis. Finally, we
advocate a theory of language acquisition that uses conceptual
structure as input to the learning procedures, thus bridging the
gap between it and language.

KEYWORDS: biology of language; conceptual structure; evolution;
Homo habilis; language acquisition; neurolinguistics; origin of
language; paleoneurology; preadaptation; sensorimotor feedback

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