Laboratoire Parole et Langage, LPL UMR 7309, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Aix-Marseille Université, Aix-en-Provence, France.
Institute of Language, Communication and the Brain, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Aix-Marseille Université, Aix-en-Provence, France.
Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2019 Oct;1453(1):99-113. doi: 10.1111/nyas.14228. Epub 2019 Sep 4.
Speech is a distinctive feature of our species. It is the default channel for language and constitutes our primary mode of social communication. Determining the evolutionary origins of speech is a challenging prospect, in large part because it appears to be unique in the animal kingdom. However, direct comparisons between speech and other forms of acoustic communication, both in humans (music) and animals (vocalization), suggest that important components of speech are shared across domains and species. In this review, we focus on a single aspect of speech-temporal patterning-examining similarities and differences across speech, music, and animal vocalization. Additional structure is provided by focusing on three specific functions of temporal patterning across domains: (1) emotional expression, (2) social interaction, and (3) unit identification. We hypothesize an evolutionary trajectory wherein the ability to identify units within a continuous stream of vocal sounds derives from social vocal interaction, which, in turn, derives from vocal emotional communication. This hypothesis implies that unit identification has parallels in music and precursors in animal vocal communication. Accordingly, we demonstrate the potential of comparisons between fundamental domains of biological acoustic communication to provide insight into the evolution of language.
言语是我们人类物种的独特特征。它是语言的默认渠道，也是我们主要的社交沟通方式。确定言语的进化起源是一个具有挑战性的问题，部分原因在于它似乎在动物王国中是独一无二的。然而，言语和其他形式的声学交流（包括人类的音乐和动物的叫声）之间的直接比较表明，言语的重要组成部分在不同领域和物种中是共有的。在这篇综述中，我们专注于言语的一个方面——时间模式，研究言语、音乐和动物叫声之间的相似性和差异。通过关注时间模式在三个特定领域的三个具体功能，为研究提供了额外的结构：（1）情感表达，（2）社会互动，（3）单元识别。我们假设了一个进化轨迹，其中在连续的声音流中识别单元的能力源于社交声音互动，而社交声音互动又源于声音情感交流。这个假设意味着单元识别在音乐中有相似之处，在动物的声音交流中有前身。因此，我们展示了将生物声学交流的基本领域进行比较的潜力，以深入了解语言的进化。
