Ujhelyi M
Institute of Behavioural Sciences, Semmelweis University of Medicine, Budapest, Hungary.
J Theor Biol. 1996 May 7;180(1):71-6. doi: 10.1006/jtbi.1996.0079.
Animal communication and human language have fundamental differences in their structures and functions. Furthermore, there is no living species demonstrating an intermediate stage of language evolution. Thus, we have difficulty in finding characteristics attributable to a communication system which can already be considered as a starting point for linguistic evolution. However, some findings coming from neurolinguistic research give us the opportunity to suppose that varying and arranging linguistic elements can be detached from other grammatical functions. Further information in this direction comes from apes' language-teaching experiments; namely bonobos (Pan paniscus) are able to understand and produce differences in meaning by varying word arrangements. Based on these results one can suppose that an acoustic signal system, which possesses discrete units for variable use, might be very ancient and might exist independent and prior to a more advanced language state. In the natural setting, acoustic territorial marking behaviour is exposed to selection pressure to elaborate sign systems built up from discrete, variable units. In addition to the well-known territorial bird songs, some monkey species and all species of lesser apes have territorial songs fitting these criteria. The analyses of the so-called long calls in chimpanzees and bonobos make it likely that the group-living great apes preserved the ability to create syntactically different calls, which would be developed by requirements of social life. A call repertoire emerged in these species, which contained a large number of call variants at group level available for each group member via social learning. This type of animal call is different from ordinary animal communication; it shows some features of human language. It can represent an intermediate stage between animal communication and language, and communication systems similar to this one can be considered as a starting point or first stage of language evolution.
动物交流与人类语言在结构和功能上存在根本差异。此外，没有现存物种展示出语言进化的中间阶段。因此，我们很难找到可归因于一个已经能被视为语言进化起点的交流系统的特征。然而，一些神经语言学研究的发现让我们有机会推测，语言元素的变化和排列可以与其他语法功能相分离。这方面的更多信息来自对猿类的语言教学实验；即倭黑猩猩（Pan paniscus）能够通过改变单词排列来理解和产生意义上的差异。基于这些结果，可以推测一个拥有离散单元以供灵活使用的声学信号系统可能非常古老，并且可能独立存在于更高级的语言状态之前。在自然环境中，声学领域标记行为面临选择压力，促使由离散、可变单元构建的信号系统得到完善。除了众所周知的领域性鸟鸣，一些猴子物种和所有小型猿类物种都有符合这些标准的领域性叫声。对黑猩猩和倭黑猩猩所谓的长叫声的分析表明，群居的大型猿类保留了创造句法上不同叫声的能力，这种能力会因社会生活的需求而发展。在这些物种中出现了一个叫声库，其中包含大量在群体层面的叫声变体，每个群体成员都可以通过社会学习获得。这种动物叫声不同于普通的动物交流；它显示出一些人类语言的特征。它可以代表动物交流与语言之间的一个中间阶段，与这种叫声类似的交流系统可以被视为语言进化的起点或第一阶段。
