Pinker, S., & Bloom, P. (1990). Natural languages and natural selection. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 13, 707-784.  Home/Search   Document Not in Database   Summary   Related Articles   Check

....device, LAD, that constrains us to learn a LLAD LPH [16] 18 2. How LLAD is also the set of languages that are functional as communicative systems for the human species. The LAD, like any other complex functional biological structure, evolved through a process of natural selection [39]. Already, we can see why ALife techniques might be useful to check the claims of explanatory linguistics. After all, in its short history, ALife has regularly tackled issues such as: communication, learning, and biological adaptation. However, the case for ALife as an approach has become ....

Pinker, S. and Bloom, P. (1990). Natural language and natural selection. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 13, 707-784.

.... range of grammatical hypotheses that children entertain during language acquisition (see Wexler Culicover (1980) Lightfoot (1982) Many linguists believe that universal grammar is the consequence of specic genetically encoded structures within the human brain (Hornstein Lightfoot 1981; Pinker Bloom 1990; Jackendo 1997) It is important to note the dierence between universal grammar and the grammar of the spoken language. The former is a hardwired property of the child s brain, whereas the latter is the specic grammar that the child learns during its maturation phase. Let us denote all ....

Pinker, S. & Bloom, A. 1990 Natural language and natural selection. Behav. Brain Sci. 13, 707^784.

....and Computation Research Unit Department of Linguistics University of Edinburgh http: www.ling.ed.ac.uk simon 1 Introduction How can we explain the origins of our uniquely human compositional system of communication 1 Much of the recent work tackling this problem (e. g Bickerton 1990; Pinker Bloom 1990; Newmeyer 1991; Hurford et al. 1998) explicitly attempts to relate models of our innate linguistic endowment with neo Darwinian evolutionary theory. These are essentially functional stories, arguing that the central features of human language are genetically encoded and have emerged over ....

....approach does not deny the possibility that much of our linguistic ability may be explained in terms of natural selection, but it does highlight the fact that biological evolution is by no means the only powerful adaptive system at work in the origins of human language. 2 The origins of syntax Pinker Bloom (1990) argue that an analysis of the design features of human language, and of syntax in particular, leads to the conclusion that the best way of understanding their origins is as biological adaptations. The central questions that should be asked in their view are: 1 This research was carried out at ....

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PINKER, STEVEN, & PAUL BLOOM. 1990. Natural language and natural selection. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 13.707--784.

....number of different messages. The characteristics of the transition from animal to human communication, however, remain an intriguing, unsolved problem. In recent years the scientific debate on the origins and the nature of the human language capabilities has been reopened by a paper by Pinker Bloom (1990), that argues that language origins can and should be studied from a Darwinian perspective. Following Noam Chomsky s famous line of arguments, Pinker Bloom claim that underlying all human languages is an innate computational system with a general structure called universal grammar ; this ....

PINKER, S. & BLOOM (1990). Natural language and natural selection. Behavioral and brain sciences .

....the new concepts comes from the attempt to make explicit the fact that there is much more to explanations in evolutionary theory than the overemphasis on adaptationist explanations suggests. The debate involving exaptationist versus adaptationist explanations is still very active; for example, [17] features a recent debate in the context of the evolution of human language, with both sides fiercely represented. The predominance of the adaptationist programme is precisely the target of the criticisms expressed not only in [6] but also in [5] 11] and [16] As remarked in [12] it is not ....

S. Pinker & P. Bloom. "Natural language and natural selection". Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 13:707-784, 1990.

.... capacity for syntax have placed emphasis on two contrasting adaptive processes: Genetic adaptation of the genetically encoded human language acquisition device to support syntactic communication due to fitness advantages offered by syntactic communication (e.g. Nowak, Plotkin and Jansen, 2000; Pinker Bloom, 1990). Cultural adaptation of language in favour of compositionality, due to cultural selection resulting from language learner biases during cultural transmission of communication (e.g. Batali, in press; Kirby, 2000) Such models are not primarily concerned with the origin of the language learner s ....

Pinker, S. & Bloom, P,. (1990). Natural language and natural selection. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 13, 707--784.

....on sequential learning tasks. This prediction has been borne out in previous work by Christiansen (2000) in terms of an explanation of basic word order universals. In this paper, we take a similar approach to one of the classic linguistic universals: subjacency. Why Subjacency According to Pinker and Bloom (1990), subjacency is one of the classic examples of an arbitrary linguistic constraint that makes sense only from a linguistic perspective. Informally, Subjacency, in effect, keeps rules from relating elements that are too far apart from each other , where the distance apart is defined in term of the ....

Pinker, S., & Bloom, P. (1990). Natural language and natural selection. Brain and Behavioral Sciences, 13(4), 707--727.

....universal tendencies in how languages are structured and used. Theories of language evolution seek to explain how these constraints may have evolved in the hominid lineage. Some theories suggest that the evolution of a Chomskyan Universal Grammar (UG) underlies these universal constraints (e.g. Pinker Bloom, 1990). More recently, an alternative perspective is gaining ground. This approach advocates a refocus in evolutionary thinking; stressing the adaptation of linguistic structures to the human brain rather than vice versa (e.g. Christiansen, 1994; Kirby, 1998) Accordingly, language has evolved to fit ....

....the results from the artificial language learning experiment and the connectionist simulations support our idea that subjacency violations are avoided, not because of an innate subjacency principle, but because of cognitive constraints on sequential learning. Why Subjacency According to Pinker and Bloom (1990), subjacency is one of the classic examples of an arbitrary linguistic constraint that makes sense only from a linguistic perspective. Informally, the subjacency principle involves the assumption of certain S Comp S NP VP VS Comp S NP VP V NP 2a. Sara heard that everybody likes cats. ....

Pinker, S., & Bloom, P. (1990). Natural language and natural selection. Brain and Behavioral Sciences, 13(4), 707--727.

.... Evolutionary psychology (Barkow, Cosmides, Tooby, 1992) argues for cognitive universals in mental architecture that have evolved as adaptations over evolutionary time, with an emphasis on specific complexes for such activities as social exchange (Cosmides Tooby, 1992) and certainly language (Pinker Bloom, 1992). The motivating analogy is the eye, an exquisite, function specific, complex arrangement of tissue that has evolved due to strong selection pressures (Tooby Cosmides, 1992) Evolutionary psychology seeks to explain complex cognitive modules, rather than unprogrammed universal computational ....

Pinker, S., & Bloom, P. (1992). Natural language and natural selection. In J. H.

....the need for a large expressiveness with the limitations in human learning and memory. This aspect is, in the traditional view, what makes syntax selectively advantageous, and caused the transition from an extensive non syntactical protolanguage to a more efficient, syntactical language system (Pinker Bloom, 1990; Nowak Krakauer, 1999) We study this transition in a computational model of an evolving population of communicating agents. The main advantages of computational and mathematical models such as (Hurford, 1989; Steels, 1997; Hashimoto Ikegami, 1996; Nowak Krakauer, 1999) are that they are ....

PINKER, S. & BLOOM, P. (1990). Natural language and natural selection. Behavioral and brain sciences.

....generalizes) from a finite presentation of examples. In its broadest formulation it involves accounting for the psychogical and linguistic facts of native language acquisition by human children, or even the acquisition of language itself by Homo Sapiens through natural selection (Lieberman, 1984; Pinker Bloom, 1990) The problem has become specialized across many scientific disciplines, and there is a voluminous literature. Mathematical and computational theorists are concerned with the basic questions and definitions of language learning (Gold, 1967) with understanding the complexity of the problem ....

Pinker, S. & Bloom, P. (1990). Natural Language and Natural Selection. Brain and Behavioral Sciences, 12, 707-784.

....island and other parts of the New world. 66 learning since learning can smooth the no intermediate landscape (a brief explanation of this is given in the chapter 2.1. 1) Subsequently, it has been a popular idea that the Baldwin effect is a crucial factor in the evolution of language (e.g. Pinker Bloom 1990, Briscoe forthcoming, Turkel in preparation) In this paper, however, I reveal that the Baldwin effect hardly occurs in the evolution of the LAD due to its genetic complexity. Before discussing this further, let us review some studies of the Baldwin effect concerning the evolution of language. ....

Pinker, S. & P. Bloom (1990) "Natural Language and Natural Selection" Behavioural and Brain Science 13.

....the best explanation for the structure of language is one which invokes biological evolution. In other words, the Language Acquisition Device is a biological adaptation that evolved through natural selection in response to the need to communicate propositional structures over a serial interface (Pinker and Bloom, 1990, 707) 2 Evolution without natural selection The standard (biological) evolutionary approach to the origins of syntactic structure typically ignores the dynamics of the social cultural transmission of language. 2 However, recently there has been more interest in the formal and computational ....

Pinker, S. and P. Bloom (1990). Natural language and natural selection. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 13, 707-784.

....Subject and Object are universally available, and probably universally used, in the grammars of languages. They do not belong to nonlinguistic (or prelinguistic) mental representations, but are rather part of the solution to the problem of mapping propositional structures onto a serial channel (Pinker and Bloom, 1990:713) In the following sections, a survey will be presented of other such aspects of the structure of language which are parts of the solution to the expression problem, rather than aspects of the pre existing mental representations. Languages are very complex, highly structured communication ....

Pinker, Steven, and Paul Bloom, 1990, "Natural Language and Natural Selection", Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 13,4:707-727.

....inaccurate inductive biases arise and how the language acquisition device evolved. To develop a precise and coherent answer to these questions it is not enough to model the acquisition device, we also need to characterize the environment in which such a device could emerge and evolve (e.g. Pinker and Bloom, 1990). This environment must have included (proto)language(s) capable of creating (natural) selection pressure in favour of more efficient and reliable language acquisition (e.g. Kirby, 1998) In turn, the evolving language acquisition device created (linguistic) selection pressure in favour of more ....

....acquisition which will form the basis of both the inheritance of and possibly selection amongst those variants. But before, developing such a model we need to consider the relationship between linguistic evolution and the biological evolution of the LAD. 1. 3 Coevolution and Genetic Assimilation Pinker and Bloom (1990) argue for an adaptationist account of the biological evolution of the language acquisition device (LAD) suggesting that the domain specific linguistic knowledge required to support reliable language learning was genetically assimilated via natural selection for more successful language learners ....

[Article contains additional citation context not shown here]

Pinker, Steven and Paul Bloom (1990) `Natural language and natural selection', Behavioral and Brain Sciences, vol.13, 707--784.

.... robust counter evidence (e.g. Bickerton, 1984; Hyams, 1986; Lightfoot, 1992) A variety of explanations have been offered for the emergence of a partially innate language acquisition device (LAD) with such properties based on saltation (Berwick, 1998; Bickerton, 1990, 1998) or genetic assimilation (Pinker and Bloom, 1990). But none provide a coherent detailed account of both the emergence and maintenance of a LAD in an evolving population. The account proposed here is that a minimal LAD emerged via recruitment of general purpose (Bayesian) learning mechanisms (e.g. Staddon, 1988; Cosmides and Tooby, 1996) to a ....

Pinker, S. and Bloom, P. (1990) `Natural language and natural selection', Behavioral and Brain Sciences, vol.13, 707--784.

....the FORCE as it is carried away by the second object. With regard to your very interesting observations on language structure, I am attracted to the idea that there has been a co evolution of grammatical (e.g. verb argument) structure and the representational systems employed by ToBy and ToMM. Pinker and Bloom (1990), for example, have made parallel arguments. If I am right in understanding your examples, then where there is a volitional Agent, the Agent can be mentioned as initiator of an extended sequence; where there is no volitional Agent, then only a direct cause (i.e. the penultimate event in the ....

Pinker, S., & Bloom, P. (1990) Natural language and natural selection. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 13, 707--784.

....of triggering data with internal preferences created by LP UG. In Briscoe (1998a, 1999, 2000) I address the question of how likely it is that the language faculty incorporates inductive bias. I argue that if the language faculty is the result of genetic assimilation (e.g. Waddington, 1942; Pinker and Bloom, 1990; Kirby, 1998) if there is correlation between LP UG and its genotypic specification (e.g. Mayley, 1996) and if the communicative success ratio (CSR) as defined in section 1.2, is interpreted as a measure of agent fitness, then it is highly likely that the language faculty incorporates ....

....the possible parameters in the predefined space of UGs have been converted to principles or default valued parameters. Without continuous linguistic change, there is no reason why the process of genetic assimilation should not proceed until the need for (grammatical) learning is eradicated (pace Pinker and Bloom, 1990). However, with constant linguistic change, too much constraint on learning becomes maladaptive. These simulations cannot, of course, prove that the language faculty incorporates inductive bias via genetic assimilation, but they do help clarify the (prehistoric) conditions under which this would ....

Pinker, S. and Bloom, P. (1990) `Natural language and natural selection', Behavioral and Brain Sciences, vol.13, 707--784.

....time scale, functional pressures may actually shape the innate language faculty. This adaptationist idea is resisted by formalists, such as Piattelli Palmarini (1989) and Chomsky (1968:82 83; 1980:99 100; 1982:29; 1988:167,170) who oppose an adaptationist program in the origins of language. But Pinker and Bloom (1990) have refuted such objections with enough cogency, I believe, to justify pursuing the phylogenetic functionalistnativist approach. Pinker and Bloom s paper, has, however, been received with only modified rapture by functionalists (e.g. Bates and MacWhinney, 1990) who resist the idea of a ....

Pinker, Steven and Bloom, Paul. 1990. "Natural language and natural selection". Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 13,4: 707-727.

....the interpretation of the neural evidence. While, as we have noted, the details of Deacon s analysis must be regarded as provisional, what we want to emphasize is how interfield theories can be developed in this area that link neuroscience, psychology, and evolution. Cosmides and Tooby (1992) cite Pinker s and Bloom s (1992) analysis of the evolution of language as their example of how evolutionary psychology might examine language processes. The difference neuroscience plays in the study of language in Deacon s account in contrast to that of Pinker and Bloom is remarkable. For Pinker and Bloom, the fundamental claim ....

Pinker, S. and Bloom, P. (1992), "Natural Language and Natural Selection," in J. H. Barkow, L.

....and Computation Research Unit Department of Linguistics University of Edinburgh http: www.ling.ed.ac.uk simon 1 Introduction How can we explain the origins of our uniquely human compositional system of communication 1 Much of the recent work tackling this problem (e. g Bickerton 1990; Pinker Bloom 1990; Newmeyer 1991; Hurford et al. 1998) explicitly attempts to relate models of our innate linguistic endowment with neo Darwinian evolutionary theory. These are essentially functional stories, arguing that the central features of human language are genetically encoded and have emerged over ....

....approach does not deny the possibility that much of our linguistic ability may be explained in terms of natural selection, but it does highlight the fact that biological evolution is by no means the only powerful adaptive system at work in the origins of human language. 2 The origins of syntax Pinker Bloom (1990) argue that an analysis of the design features of human language, and of syntax in particular, leads to the conclusion that the best way of understanding their origins is as biological adaptations. The central questions that should be asked in their view are: 1 This research was carried out at ....

[Article contains additional citation context not shown here]

PINKER, STEVEN, & PAUL BLOOM. 1990. Natural language and natural selection. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 13.707--784.

....as a negative note on theories of language evolution, in fact his arguments in no way clash with the tenor of the other chapters here. This is an indication of how far and how quickly theorizing about the evolution of syntax has shifted in the decade since Pinker and Bloom s influential paper (Pinker and Bloom, 1990). Popular science books can give an impression of simple intellectual battlelines drawn up with Dawkins, Pinker and Dennett on one side (the adaptivists ) and Chomsky, Gould and Lewontin on the other. As Andrew CarstairsMcCarthy s chapter in this volume notes, What both sides in this debate ....

Pinker, Steven, and Paul Bloom, 1990 "Natural Language and Natural Selection ", Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 13:707-784.

.... 1984; Lightfoot, 1992; Briscoe, 1997, 1998a,b) A variety of explanations have been offered for the emergence of a partially innate language acquisition device (LAD) with such properties, such as biological saltation (Chomsky, 1972; Berwick, 1998; Bickerton, 1998) or genetic assimilation (Pinker and Bloom, 1990; Briscoe, 1997, 1998a,b) But none provide a coherent account of both the emergence and maintenance of a LAD in an evolving population. The account offered here is that an embryonic LAD emerged via exaption of general purpose (Bayesian) learning mechanisms (e.g. Staddon, 1988; Cosmides and Tooby, ....

Pinker, S. and Bloom, P. (1990) `Natural language and natural selection', Behavioral and Brain Sciences, vol.13, 707--784.

....from a finite presentation of examples. In its broadest formula ion it involves accounting for the psychogical and linguistic facts of native language S acquisition by human children, or even the acquisition of language itself by Homo apiens through natural selection (Lieberman, 1984; Pinker Bloom, 1990) e i The problem has become specialized across many scientific disciplines, and ther s a voluminous literature. Mathematical and computational theorists are concerned s with the basic questions and definitions of language learning (Gold, 1967) with under tanding the complexity of the problem ....

Pinker, S. & Bloom, P. (1990). Natural Language and Natural Selection. Brain and P Behavioral Sciences, 12, 707-784.

.... [10] And if the proposed language formation mechanisms enable artificial agents to create their own language, then it is no longer self evident that linguistic knowledge must for the most part be universal and innate [6] or that language can only be explained by genetic mutation and selection [26]. Another important point is that the methodology being used (i.e. computer simulations and experiments with robotic systems) is in itself neutral with respect to the proposed theory. Nativist theories could be explored in the same way. For example, Gillis, Durieux and Daelemans [11] report on ....

Pinker, S, and P. Bloom (1990) Natural language and natural selection. Behav. Brain Sci. 13, 707-784.

....defining a possible human grammar and a set of biases (partially) ranking possible grammars by markedness. A variety of explanations have been offered for the emergence of an innate LAD with such properties based on saltation (Berwick, 1998; Bickerton, 1990, 1998) or genetic assimilation (Pinker and Bloom, 1990; Kirby, 1998) Formal models of parameter setting (e.g. Clark, 1992; Gibson and Wexler, 1994; Niyogi and Berwick, 1996; Brent, 1996) have demonstrated that development of a psychologically plausible and effective parameter setting algorithm, even for minimal fragments of UG, is not trivial. The ....

.... that communicative success confers an increase in fitness, we should expect the learning period to be attenuated by selection for more effective acquisition procedures in the space which can be explored by the population; that is, we should expect genetic assimilation (e.g. Waddington, 1942, Pinker and Bloom, 1990). In the context of the Bayesian acquisition procedure, genetic assimilation corresponds to the evolution of the prior probabilities which define the starting point for learning to more accurately reflect properties of the environment (during the period of adaptation) Staddon (1988) and Cosmides ....

Pinker, S. and Bloom, P. (1990) `Natural language and natural selection', Behavioral and Brain Sciences, vol.13, 707--784.

....a metaphor, and study language directly from an evolutionary perspective. There are two ways in which evolutionary theory might bear on language. Firstly, it is possible, indeed highly probable, that the LAD is adaptive and has been selected for via biological evolution in the hominid line (e.g. Pinker and Bloom, 1990; Newmeyer, 1991, 1992) But secondly, language itself can be viewed as a dynamic system which adapts to its niche of human language learners and users (e.g. Cziko, 1995; Hurford, 1987; 1998; Keller, 1994) In this second view, 3 Muller, Schleicher and other 19th century linguists speculated ....

....of language acquisition which will form the basis of both the inheritance and selection amongst those variants. But before, developing such a model we need to consider the relationship between linguistic evolution and the biological evolution of the LAD. 1. 3 Coevolution and Genetic Assimilation Pinker and Bloom (1990) argue for an adaptationist account of the evolution of the language acquisition device (LAD) suggesting that the domain specific linguistic (grammatical) knowledge required to support reliable language learning was geneti5 cally assimilated via natural selection for more successful language ....

[Article contains additional citation context not shown here]

Pinker, S. and Bloom, P. (1990) `Natural language and natural selection', Behavioral and Brain Sciences, vol.13, 707--784.

.... robust counter evidence (e.g. Bickerton, 1984; Hyams, 1986; Lightfoot, 1992) A variety of explanations have been offered for the emergence of a partially innate language acquisition device (LAD) with such properties based on saltation (Berwick, 1998; Bickerton, 1990, 1998) or genetic assimilation (Pinker and Bloom, 1990). But none provide a coherent detailed account of both the emergence and maintenance of a LAD in an evolving population. The account proposed here is that a minimal LAD emerged via recruitment of general purpose (Bayesian) learning mechanisms (e.g. Staddon, 1988; Cosmides and Tooby, 1996) to a ....

Pinker, S. and Bloom, P. (1990) `Natural language and natural selection', Behavioral and Brain Sciences, vol.13, 707--784.

....language ability and demonstrated the computational adequacy of connectionist models of language, I sketch a theory of the evolution and acquisition of language in chapter 5. The theory distances itself from the dominating exaptationist (e.g. Piattelli Palmarini, 1989) and adaptationist (e.g. Pinker Bloom, 1990) perspectives on language evolution by construing language as a nonobligate symbiant (that is, a kind of beneficial parasite) As such, there has been a much stronger pressure on language to adapt to the constraints imposed by human learning and processing mechanisms, than vice versa. This view ....

....that it might have arisen as a by product of increased brain size following evolutionary pressures driven by other functions than language, or, perhaps, as a consequence of random mutations. The other camp (e.g. Bloom, 1994; Corballis, 1992, 1994; Greenfield, 1991; Hurford, 1991; Pinker, 1994; Pinker Bloom, 1990) emphasizes a gradual evolution of the human language faculty through natural selection. In this picture, it is assumed that having a language confers added reproductive fitness on humans and that this, in turn, leads to a selective pressure towards increasingly more complex grammars. Both ....

[Article contains additional citation context not shown here]

Pinker, S. & Bloom, P. (1990) Natural Language and Natural Selection. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 13, 707--784.

....of a new language is a matter of setting switches (choosing parameters) If universal grammar is innate, then presumably language arises and develops as a consequence of genetic mutations. Such a hypothesis has indeed been put forward and is investigated by linguists and biologists alike [8]. In a series of experiments, I am exploring a different approach which is summarised in the following two hypotheses: 1] Language is an autonomous adaptive system which forms itself in a self organizing process. Language is therefore similar to other self organizing phenomena observed in ....

Pinker, S, and P. Bloom (1990) Natural language and natural selection. Behav. Brain Sci. 13, 707-784.

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Pinker, S., & Bloom, P. (1990). Natural languages and natural selection. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 13, 707-784.

No context found.

Pinker, S. and P. Bloom (1990) Natural Language and Natural Selection. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 13, 707-784.

No context found.

Pinker, S, and P. Bloom (1990) Natural language and natural selection. Behav. Brain Sci. 13, 707-784.

No context found.

Pinker, S., & Bloom, P. (1990). Natural language and natural selection. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 13, 707--784.

No context found.

PINKER,S.&BLOOM, A. (1990). Natural language and natural selection. Behav. Brain Sci. 13, 707}784.

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Pinker, Steven and Paul Bloom. 1990. "Natural language and natural selection." Behavioral and Brain Sciences 13: 707-784.

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Pinker, S. and P. Bloom (1992) Natural language and natural selection. In: Barkow, J, L. Cosmides and J. Tooby (eds.) (1992) The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture. Oxford University Press, Oxford. pp. 451-493.

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Pinker, S. and Bloom, P. (1992) `Natural language and natural selection' in J. Barkow, L. Cosmides and J. Tooby (ed.), The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 451--493.

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