The self-organization of speech sounds

The speech code is a vehicle of language: it defines a set of forms used by a community to carry information. Such a code is necessary to support the linguistic interactions that allow humans to communicate. How then may a speech code be formed prior to the existence of linguistic interactions? Moreover, the human speech code is discrete and compositional, shared by all the individuals of a community but different across communities, and phoneme inventories are characterized by statistical regularities. How can a speech code with these properties form? We try to approach these questions in the paper, using the "methodology of the artificial". We build a society of artificial agents, and detail a mechanism that shows the formation of a discrete speech code without pre-supposing the existence of linguistic capacities or of coordinated interactions. The mechanism is based on a low-level model of sensory-motor interactions. We show that the integration of certain very simple and non-language-specific neural devices leads to the formation of a speech code that has properties similar to the human speech code. This result relies on the self-organizing properties of a generic coupling between perception and production within agents, and on the interactions between agents. The artificial system helps us to develop better intuitions on how speech might have appeared, by showing how self-organization might have helped natural selection to find speech.     

Neighbour-nets portray the Chinese dialect continuum and the linguistic legacy of China's demic history

As with species studied by evolutionary biologists, languages are evolving entities. They can evolve in tree-like patterns, possibly blurred by borrowing, but they can also develop in non-tree-like schemes. For instance, diglossia, as in the case of Chinese, can counterbalance the hierarchical pattern expected from differentiation by internal change associated with isolation by distance of speech communities. Using two lexical datasets, either the basic lexicon supposedly more immune to borrowing or a representative sample of the whole lexicon, we investigate the development pattern of Chinese dialects using a neighbour-net approach, which is an unprejudiced technique for representing object relationships. The resulting graphs are consistent with a dialect continuum shaped by counterbalanced effects of homogenizing diglossia and borrowing versus differentiating spread of speech communities. Historical events and linguistic claims can be mapped on these graphs.     

Vowel Hyperarticulation in Parrot-, Dog- and Infant-Directed Speech

ABSTRACT

Vowel triangle area is a phonetic measure of the clarity of vowel articulation. Compared with speech to adults, people hyperarticulate vowels in speech to infants and foreigners but not to pets, despite other similarities in infant- and pet-directed-speech. This suggests that vowel hyperarticulation has a didactic function positively related to the actual, or even the expected, degree of linguistic competence of the audience. Parrots have some degree of linguistic competence yet no studies have examined vowel hyperarticulation in speech to parrots. Here, we compared the speech of 11 adults to another adult, a dog, a parrot, and an infant. A significant linear increase in vowel triangle area was found across the four conditions, showing that the degree of vowel hyperarticulation increased from adult- and dog-directed speech to parrot-directed speech, then to infant-directed speech. This suggests that the degree of vowel hyperarticulation is related to the audience's actual or expected linguistic competence. The results are discussed in terms of the relative roles of speakers' expectations versus listeners' feedback in the production of vowel hyperarticulation; and suggestions for further studies, manipulating speaker expectation and listener feedback, are provided.     

Did language evolve in multilingual settings?

Accounts of language evolution have largely suffered from a monolingual bias, assuming that language evolved in a single isolated community sharing most speech conventions. Rather, evidence from the small-scale societies who form the best simulacra available for ancestral human communities suggests that the combination of small societal scale and out-marriage pushed ancestral human communities to make use of multiple linguistic systems. Evolutionary innovations would have occurred in a number of separate communities, distributing the labor of structural invention between populations, and would then have been pooled gradually through multilingually mediated horizontal transfer to produce the technological package we now regard as a natural ensemble.     

Oceanic barriers promote language diversification in the Japanese Islands

Good barriers make good languages. Scholars have long speculated that geographical barriers impede linguistic contact between speech communities and promote language diversification in a manner similar to the process of allopatric speciation. This hypothesis, however, has seldom been tested systematically and quantitatively. Here, we adopt methods from evolutionary biology and attempt to quantify the influence of oceanic barriers on the degree of lexical diversity in the Japanese Islands. Measuring the degree of beta diversity from basic vocabularies, we find that geographical proximity and, more importantly, isolation by surrounding ocean, independently explains a significant proportion of lexical variation across Japonic languages. Further analyses indicate that our results are neither a by‐product of using a distance matrix derived from a Bayesian language phylogeny nor an epiphenomenon of accelerated evolutionary rates in languages spoken by small communities. Moreover, we find that the effect of oceanic barriers is reproducible with the Ainu languages, indicating that our analytic approach as well as the results can be generalized beyond Japonic language family. The findings we report here are the first quantitative evidence that physical barriers formed by ocean can influence language diversification and points to an intriguing common mechanism between linguistic and biological evolution.     

Bantu language trees reflect the spread of farming across sub-Saharan Africa: a maximum-parsimony analysis

Linguistic divergence occurs after speech communities divide, in a process similar to speciation among isolated biological populations. The resulting languages are hierarchically related, like genes or species. Phylogenetic methods developed in evolutionary biology can thus be used to infer language trees, with the caveat that 'borrowing' of linguistic elements between languages also occurs, to some degree. Maximum-parsimony trees for 75 Bantu and Bantoid African languages were constructed using 92 items of basic vocabulary. The level of character fit on the trees was high (consistency index was 0.65), indicating that a tree model fits Bantu language evolution well, at least for the basic vocabulary. The Bantu language tree reflects the spread of farming across this part of sub-Saharan Africa between ca. 3000 BC and AD 500. Modern Bantu subgroups, defined by clades on parsimony trees, mirror the earliest farming traditions both geographically and temporally. This suggests that the major subgroups of modern Bantu stem from the Neolithic and Early Iron Age, with little subsequent movement by speech communities.     

Biology of human speech communication

In this paper the analysis of the human acoustic communication channel is presented as a potentially bio-anthropological subject of interest. After a crude survey concerning some important aspects of speech and expressive behaviour a hypothesis is outlined saying that the verbal and the nonverbal content of the speech signal are not just transferred side by side; rather there exist close interconnections between the linguistic and the expressive structures, which is shown regarding the speech melody; the 'cultural' language code makes use of a predominantly 'non-cultural' code of vocalisations for the purpose of linguistic disambiguation and speeding up the communication process. The complementarity of these two codes, their principal independence of each other as well as their different cerebral representation contribute to the high efficiency of speech as a communication tool.     

Language Ideology and Women's Speech: Talking Community in the Northwest Amazon

Taking the Northwest Amazon of Brazil as its example, this article argues for the analytic concept of a "speech culture," combining, but heuristically separating, speech practice and language ideology. In the Northwest Amazon, an ideology of language establishes an equivalence between linguistic performance and descent group belonging. In contrast to the fixed, normative notions of groupness, this article explores the dynamic construction of social relations through women's ritualized wept greeting speech. In these interactions, linguistic differentiation is countered by the experience of a single speech act based upon shared principles with organized participation in and by different linguistic codes. Through the collaborative nature of the speech act a common ground is produced and revealed. The community in this sense emerges as a cultural artifact whose production is largely the work of women. Through these speech interactions—of similar sentiments and meanings across different linguistic codes—women of the Northwest Amazon construct a community of talk. [Keywords: women, laments, language, Amazonia]     

Association Process and Functional Brain Asymmetry

Analysis is presented of word associations produced by subjects with left hemispheric (group 1), right hemispheric (group 2), and bilateral (group 3) speech representation. The strategy for producing extralinguistic responses was found to prevail over the strategy for producing linguistic associations in all subjects, irrespective of their type of speech representation. This strategy was more pronounced in subjects with right hemispheric speech laterality, suggesting a correlation between the generation of extralinguistic associations and functional brain asymmetry. Producing linguistic associations also depended on the type of cerebral organization of speech. The most important linguistic associations are syntagmatic. Syntagmatic associations were more closely related to the lateralization of speech to the left hemisphere. The data are compared to the results of studies of the ontogeny of associative processes.     

A phenomenological view of language shift

Sociolinguistic studies of language shift have in their majority framed their research object in a horizon of theoretically received variables such as class, ethnicity, locality, attitudes etc. In spite of a limited usefulness of such conceptual variables, and of a recently emerging focus on agency, negotiation, and praxis the best results we obtain have not questioned in a coherent and theoretically sound manner the continuing hegemony of mechanistic-metaphorical models (language death, language suicide). In this paper I propose to examine language shift as a multifaceted phenomenon, joining in this respect work by other linguistic anthropologists researching similar areas. I specifically argue that by replacing vertical concepts such as age and generation, and dichotomous logics such as center and periphery with phenomenologically inspired concepts such as typifications, consociateship, contemporariness, and stream of consciousness we are in a better position to generalize about language shift dynamics. Data for this work is derived primarily from the Albanian speech communities of modern Greece, but also from other communities for comparative purposes.     

Disorders of System Brain Activity in Children with Motor (Expressive) Alalia

Motor alalia refers to a number of disorders of expressive speech that are caused by the dysfunction of cerebral structures in the period when the formation of the speech system is not complete. This form of speech disorder is considered as a language disorder characterized by a persistent disturbance of the assimilation of a system of linguistic units. The possible cause of deviations in the development of speech function in children is a disproportion in the levels of development of speech structures in the left and right hemispheres, and this temporary dominance is often associated with an increased activity in the right hemisphere. According to the results of electroencephalographic studies, in children aged five to six years, there are two types of changes of the bioelectric potential system interaction of the brain cortex. The disorders of the spatial organization of interregional EEG correlations are more pronounced in either the left or right hemispheres of the brain. Thus, motor alalia can be accompanied either by disturbances in the interaction between Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas of the left hemisphere, or between symmetrical areas of the right hemisphere.     

Widening the lens: what the manual modality reveals about language,learning and cognition

The goal of this paper is to widen the lens on language to include the manual modality. We look first at hearing children who are acquiring language from a spoken language model and find that even before they use speech to communicate, they use gesture. Moreover, those gestures precede, and predict, the acquisition of structures in speech. We look next at deaf children whose hearing losses prevent them from using the oral modality, and whose hearing parents have not presented them with a language model in the manual modality. These children fall back on the manual modality to communicate and use gestures, which take on many of the forms and functions of natural language. These homemade gesture systems constitute the first step in the emergence of manual sign systems that are shared within deaf communities and are full-fledged languages. We end by widening the lens on sign language to include gesture and find that signers not only gesture, but they also use gesture in learning contexts just as speakers do. These findings suggest that what is key in gesture''s ability to predict learning is its ability to add a second representational format to communication, rather than a second modality. Gesture can thus be language, assuming linguistic forms and functions, when other vehicles are not available; but when speech or sign is possible, gesture works along with language, providing an additional representational format that can promote learning.     

Knowledge networks in the age of the Semantic Web

The Web has become the major medium for various communities to share their knowledge. To this end, it provides an optimal environment for knowledge networks. The web offers global connectivity that is virtually instantaneous, and whose resources and documents can easily be indexed for easy searching. In the coupled realms of biomedical research and healthcare, this has become especially important where today many thousands of communities already exist that connect across academia, hospitals and industry. These communities also rely on several forms of knowledge assets, including publications, experimental data, domain-specific vocabularies and policies. Web-based communities will be one of the earlier beneficiaries of the emerging Semantic Web. With the new standards and technologies of the Semantic Web, effective utilization of knowledge networks will expand profoundly, fostering new levels of innovation and knowledge.     

How is linguistic memory accessed? A psychophysiological approach

The role of "subvocalization" during language comprehension, especially reading, is examined. Four arguments against it having a role in accessing memory are erroneous because 1) its latency is much shorter than is conventionally stated; 2) rate of visual information processing is erroneously estimated by failing to distinguish between reading and scanning; 3) covert speech does not disappear in the competent language performer; and 4) the argument that subvocalization is an epiphenomenon is irrelevant. Rather, data support the generalization that covert speech is present during all cognitive functioning and that its specific topography is discriminatively related to the class of phoneme being processed. It is thus inferred that during cognition the speech musculature generates a phonetic code that may function to access linguistic memory. However, since there are also numerous other psychophysiologic events associated with covert speech, a multichannel processing system is hypothesized wherein speech, visual, and kinesthetic modalities interact with the brain. Illustrations are given of how this accessing model is compatible with existing holographic and feature analyzer models of memory. Data are presented that illustrate how phonetically encoded neuromuscular events can be directly measured through psychophysiologic methods. It is hypothesized that cognitive processes are generated when cybernetic neuromuscular circuits selectively interact. Consequently, all components of these neuromuscular circuits serve a function during cognition so that a role for "subvocalization" (a muscular component) cannot be ruled out in an apriori manner.     

Endotoxin unmasks the role of gap junctions in the liver

Gap junctions are thought to be necessary for proper tissue function. However, no clear hepatic phenotype has been described in patients lacking connexin 32 (Cx32), the principal gap junction in liver. To determine the physiological role of Cx32 in liver, we compared the response of wild type and Cx32-deficient mice to endotoxin, since this stress increases serum levels of hormones that bind to receptors that are asymmetrically distributed across the hepatic lobule. In hepatocyte couplets isolated from wild type mice, most hepatocytes could transfer microinjected dye to their neighbor even after treatment with endotoxin. Dye transfer was not observed in Cx32-deficient couplets. Treatment of hepatocyte couplets from wild type mice with vasopressin induced calcium (Ca(2+)) waves that crossed the couplets in a concentration-dependent fashion, but the delay in transmission was markedly prolonged at all concentrations in Cx32-deficient couplets. Expression of the vasopressin receptor and the inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate receptor was not decreased by endotoxin or in Cx32-deficient couplets. Finally, endotoxin caused transient hypoglycemia and cholestasis in wild type animals, but hypoglycemia was slightly prolonged and cholestasis was much worse in Cx32-deficient mice treated with endotoxin. The hepatic response to endotoxin is markedly impaired in the absence of Cx32. Thus, an important role of gap junctions in the liver is to assure integrated and uniform tissue response in times of stress.     

Patterns of covert speech behavior and phonetic coding

In previous research a discriminative relationship has been established between patterns of covert speech behavior and the phonemic system when processing continuous linguistic material. The goal of the present research was to be more analytic and pinpoint covert neuromuscular speech patterns when one processes specific instances of phonemes. Electromyographic (EMG) recording indicated that the lips are significantly active when visually processing the letter "P"(an instance of bilabial material), but not when processing the letter "T" or a nonlinguistic control (C) stimulus. Similarly, the tongue is significantly active when processing the letter "T" (an instance of lingual-alveolar material), but not when processing the letters "P" or "C". It is concluded that the speech musculature covertly responds systematically as a function of class of phoneme being processed. These results accord with our model that semantic processing ("understanding") occurs when the speech (and other) musculature interacts with linguistic regions of the brain. In the interactions phonetic coding is generated and transmitted through neuromuscular circuits that have cybernetic characteristics.     

Anticipatory Posturing of the Vocal Tract Reveals Dissociation of Speech Movement Plans from Linguistic Units

Models of speech production typically assume that control over the timing of speech movements is governed by the selection of higher-level linguistic units, such as segments or syllables. This study used real-time magnetic resonance imaging of the vocal tract to investigate the anticipatory movements speakers make prior to producing a vocal response. Two factors were varied: preparation (whether or not speakers had foreknowledge of the target response) and pre-response constraint (whether or not speakers were required to maintain a specific vocal tract posture prior to the response). In prepared responses, many speakers were observed to produce pre-response anticipatory movements with a variety of articulators, showing that that speech movements can be readily dissociated from higher-level linguistic units. Substantial variation was observed across speakers with regard to the articulators used for anticipatory posturing and the contexts in which anticipatory movements occurred. The findings of this study have important consequences for models of speech production and for our understanding of the normal range of variation in anticipatory speech behaviors.     

Ethno-cultural heritage of the peoples of west Pamir

The paper presents a study on the West Pamir communities (Badakhshan, Tajikistan) based on language data of the Pamir languages of East-Iranian origin. At present, the ethnic groups of the West Pamir: Shughni, Rushani, Bartangi, Roshorvi, Khufi, Ishkashimi and Wakhi are communities of the Ismaili Shia Islam faith. The underlying concept of the paper is that ethnic and cultural key-concepts take place in the origin of the traditional beliefs and rituals and can be reliably reconstructed from the vocabulary of a particular community. Pamir languages vocabulary of the Pamir ethnic communities that uses East and West Iranian culturally significant terms may serve as a basis for understanding the genesis of Pamir Ismailism, its particular way of absorbing external cultures, and its present specific form. The purely linguistic criteria, like temporal dimension (linguistic chronology), and geographic dispersion and mobility, are believed to be critical for linking etymology to broader socio-cultural development context of the Pamir communities socio-historical and cultural life. Contemporary social and linguistic dynamics in the relations between nation, religion and language in Tajikistan needs systematic research, and reasonable interpretation.