The evolution of language : proceedings of the 6th international conference (EVOLANG6), Rome, Italy, 12-15 April 2006 / editors Angelo Cangelosi, Andrew D.M. Smith & Kenny Smith.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Print version record.

Preface -- pt. I. Papers. The mirror system hypothesis: from a macaque-like mirror system to imitation / Michael A. Arbib, James Bonaiuto & Edina Rosta. Bootstrapping communication in language games: strategy, topology and all that / Andrea Baronchelli [and others]. Language learning, power laws, and sexual selection / Ted Briscoe. The Baldwin effect works for functional, but not arbitrary, features of language / Morten H. Christiansen, Florencia Reali & Nick Chater. On the emergence of compositionality / Joachim de Beule & Benjamin K. Bergen. Towards a fixed word order in a society of agents: a data-driven baseline perspective / Guy de Pauw. Simulation model for the evolution of language with spatial topology / Cecilia Di Chio & Paolo Di Chio. Mostly out of Africa, but what did the others have to say? / Dan Dediu. A comparison of the articulatory parameters involved in the production of sound of Bonobos and modern humans / Didier Demolin & Véronique Delvaux. Generalised signalling: a possible solution to the paradox of language / Jean-Louis Dessalles. Innateness and culture in the evolution of language / Mike Dowman, Simon Kirby & Thomas L. Griffiths. Early human language was isolating-monocategorial-associational / David Gil. Computational simulation on the coevolution of compositionality and regularity / Tao Gong, James W. Minett & William S.-Y. Wang. An epistemological inquiry into the "what is language" question and the "what did language evolve for" question / Nathalie Gontier. Minimalist foundations of language evolution: on the question of why language is the way it is / Wolfram Hinzen. Why has ambiguous syntax emerged? / Stefan Hoefler. Proto-propositions / James R. Hurford. Convex meanings and evolutionary stability / Gerhard Jäger. Natural-language "cheap talk" enables coordination on a social-dilemma game in a culturally homogeneous population / Mark Jeffreys. Constraining the time when language evolved / Sverker Johansson. Working backwards from modern language to proto-grammar / Sverker Johansson. Language co-evolved with the rule of law / Chris Knight. A saltationist approach for the evolution of human cognition and language / Susan J. Lanyon. Interaction of developmental and evolutionary processes in the emergence of spoken language / John L. Locke. Labels facilitate learning of novel categories / Gary Lupyan. Emergence of communication in teams of embodied and situated agents / Davide Morocco & Stefano Nolfi. A language emergence model predicts word order bias / James W. Minett, Tao Gong & William S-Y. Wang. Talking to oneself as a selective pressure for the emergence of language / Marco Mirolli & Domenico Parisi. Learning models for language acquisition / Shashi Mittal & Harish Karnick. Simulating the evolutionary emergence of language: a research agenda / Domenico Parisi. Evolving the narrow language faculty: was recursion the pivotal step? / Anna R. Parker. From mouth to hand / Dennis Philps. Diffusion of genes and languages in human evolution / Alberto Piazza & Luigi Cavalli Sforza. Differences and similarities between the natural gestural communication of the great apes and human children / Simone Pika & Katja Liebal. The evolution of language as a precursor to the evolution of morality / Joseph Poulshock. Modelling the transition to learned communication: an initial investigation into the ecological conditions favouring cultural transmission / Graham Ritchie & Simon Kirby. Towards a spatial language for mobile robots / Ruth Schulz [and others]. Why talk? speaking as selfish behaviour / Thom Scott-Philips. Semantic reconstructibility and the complexification of language / Andrew D.M. Smith. The protolanguage debate: bridging the gap? / Kenny Smith. How to do experiments in artificial language evolution and why / Luc Steels. The implications of bilingualism and multilingualism for potential evolved language mechanisms / Daniel A. Sternberg & Morten H. Christiansen. Selection dynamics in language form and language meaning / Monica Tamariz. A statistical analysis of language evolution / Marco Turchi & Nello Cristianini. Evolutionary games and semantic universals / Robert van Rooij. Overextensions and the emergence of compositionality / Paul Vogt. Grammaticalisation and evolution / Henk Zeevat. Stages in the Evolution and Development of Sign Use (SEDSU) / Jordan Zlatev & The SEDSU project -- pt. II. Abstracts. Alarm calls and organised imperatives in male putty-nosed monkeys / Kate Arnold & Klaus Zuberbühler. Perception acquisition as the causes for transition patterns in phonological evolution / Ching-Pong Au. The evolution of syntactic capacity from navigational ability / Mark Bartlett & Dimitar Kazakov. The subtle interplay between language and category acquisition and how it explains the universality of colour categories / Tony Belpaeme & Joris Bleys. The evolution of meaningful combinatoriality / Jill Bowie. The adaptive advantages of knowledge transmission / Joanna J. Bryson. Determining signaler intentions; use of multiple gestures in captive Bornean Orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus) / Erica Cartmill & Richard Byrne. Nuclear schizophrenic symptoms as the key to the origins of language / Timothy J. Crow. Articulator constraints and the descended larynx / Bart de Boer. Evolutionary support for a procedural semantics for generalised quantifiers / Samson Tikitu de Jager. The evolution of spoken language: a comparative approach / W. Tecumseh Fitch. Allee effect on language evolution / José F. Fontanari & Leonid I. Perlovksy. Rapidity of fading and the emergence of duality of patterning / Bruno Galantucci, Theo Rhodes & Christian Kroos. Reconsidering Kirby's compositionality model towards modelling grammaticalisation / Takashi Hashimoto & Masaya Nakatsuka. The interrelated evolutions of colour vision, colour and colour terms / David J.C. Hawkey. A little bit more, a lot better: language emergence from quantitative to qualitative change / Jinyun Ke, Christophe Coupé & Tao Gong. Major transitions in the evolution of language / Simon Kirby. Modelling unidirectionality in semantic change / Frank Landsbergen. The origin of music and its linguistic significance for modern humans / Steven Mithen. Co-evolution of language and behaviour in autonomous robots / Sara Mitri & Paul Vogt. Iconic versus arbitrary mappings and the cultural transmission of language / Padraic Monaghan & Morten H. Christiansen. Mother Tongue: concominant replacement of language and MtDNA in South Caspian populations of Iran / Ivan Nasidze & Mark Stoneking. What can grammaticalization tell us about the origins of language? / Frederick J. Newmeyer. Bootstrapping shared combinatorial speech codes from basic imitation: the role of self-organization / Pierre-Yves Oudeyer. How language can guide intelligence / Leonid I. Perlovsky & José F. Fontanari. The roles of segmentation ability in language evolution / Kazutoshi Sasahara, Bjorn Merker & Kazuo Okanoya. Primate social cognition and the cognitive precursors of language / Robert Seyfarth & Dorothy Cheney. Agonistic screams in wild chimpanzees: candidates for functionally referential signals / Katie Slocombe & Klaus Zuberbühler. An individual-based mechanism for adaptive semantic change / Daniel W. Smith. A holistic protolanguage cannot be stored, cannot be retrieved / Maggie Tallerman. Recombinance in the evolution of language / Leonard Talmy. Ape gestures and human language / Michael Tomasello. Prehistoric handedness: some hard evidence / Natalie Uomini. Lateralization of intentional gestures in non human primates: baboons communicate with their right hand / Jacques Vauclair & Adrien Meguerditchian. Emergence of grammar as revealed by visual imprinting in newly-hatched chicks / Elisabetta Versace, Lucia Regolin & Giorgio Vallortigara. Beyond the argument from design / Willem Zuidema and Timothy O'Donnell.

This volume comprises refereed papers and abstracts from the 6th International Conference on the Evolution of Language (EVOLANG6). The biennial EVOLANG conference focuses on the origins and evolution of human language, and brings together researchers from many disciplines including anthropology, archaeology, artificial life, biology, cognitive science, computer science, ethology, genetics, linguistics, neuroscience, palaeontology, primatology, and psychology. The collection presents the latest theoretical, experimental and modeling research on language evolution, and includes contributions fro.

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