Department of Spanish, Linguistics and Theory of Literature (Linguistics), Faculty of Philology, University of Seville, Seville, Spain.
Linguistics Program, Department of English, Wayne State University, Detroit, USA.
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2021 May 10;376(1824):20200187. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2020.0187. Epub 2021 Mar 22.
This theme issue builds on the surge of interest in the field of language evolution as part of the broader field of human evolution, gathering some of the field's most prominent experts in order to achieve a deeper, richer understanding of human prehistory and the nature of prehistoric languages. Taken together, the contributions to this issue begin to outline a profile of the structural and functional features of prehistoric languages, including the type of sounds, the nature of the earliest grammars, the characteristics of the earliest vocabularies and some preferred uses, like conversation and insult. By also correlating certain specific features of language with the changes in brain organization during prehistory, the contributions to this issue directly engage the genetic and the neuroscientific aspects of human evolution and cognition. This article is part of the theme issue 'Reconstructing prehistoric languages'.
本期专题是语言进化领域研究热潮的一部分,它是人类进化这一更为广泛领域的一部分,汇集了该领域的一些最杰出的专家,以更深入、更丰富地了解史前人类和史前语言的本质。本期专题中的这些文章共同开始概述史前语言的结构和功能特征的概要,包括声音类型、最早语法的性质、最早词汇的特征以及一些首选用途,如对话和侮辱。通过将语言的某些特定特征与史前时期大脑组织的变化相关联,本期专题中的文章直接涉及人类进化和认知的遗传和神经科学方面。本文是“重建史前语言”专题的一部分。