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Ontogeny and phylogeny of language.

ABSTRACT: How did language evolve? A popular approach points to the similarities between the ontogeny and phylogeny of language. Young children's language and nonhuman primates' signing both appear formulaic with limited syntactic combinations, thereby suggesting a degree of continuity in their cognitive abilities. To evaluate the validity of this approach, as well as to develop a quantitative benchmark to assess children's language development, I propose a formal analysis that characterizes the statistical profile of grammatical rules. I show that very young children's language is consistent with a productive grammar rather than memorization of specific word combinations from caregivers' speech. Furthermore, I provide a statistically rigorous demonstration that the sign use of Nim Chimpsky, the chimpanzee who was taught American Sign Language, does not show the expected productivity of a rule-based grammar. Implications for theories of language acquisition and evolution are discussed.

SUBMITTER: Yang C

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3631656 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Ontogeny and phylogeny of language.

Yang Charles C

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 20130401 16

How did language evolve? A popular approach points to the similarities between the ontogeny and phylogeny of language. Young children's language and nonhuman primates' signing both appear formulaic with limited syntactic combinations, thereby suggesting a degree of continuity in their cognitive abilities. To evaluate the validity of this approach, as well as to develop a quantitative benchmark to assess children's language development, I propose a formal analysis that characterizes the statistic ...[more]

PMID: 23576720

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Project description:BackgroundKarl Ernst Von Baer noted that species tend to show greater morphological divergence in later stages of development when compared to earlier stages. Darwin originally interpreted these observations via a selectionist framework, suggesting that divergence should be greatest during ontogenic stages in which organisms experienced varying 'conditions of existence' and opportunity for differential selection. Modern hypotheses have focused on the notion that genes and structures involved in early development will be under stronger purifying selection due to the deleterious pleiotropic effects of mutations propagating over the course of ontogeny, also known as the developmental constraint hypothesis.ResultsUsing developmental stage-specific expressed sequence tag (EST) libraries, we tested the 2 hypotheses by comparing the rates of evolution of 7,180 genes obtained from 6 species of the Drosophila melanogaster group with respect to ontogeny, and sex and reproduction-related functions in gonadal tissues. Supporting morphological observations, we found evidence of a pattern of increasing mean evolutionary rate in genes that are expressed in subsequent stages of development. Furthermore, supporting expectations that early expressed genes are constrained in divergence, we found that embryo stage genes are involved in a higher mean number of interactions as compared to later stages. We noted that the accelerated divergence of genes in the adult stage is explained by those expressed specifically in the male gonads, whose divergence is driven by positive selection. In addition, accelerated gonadal gene divergence occurs only in the adult stage, suggesting that the effects of selection are observed primarily at the stages during which they are expected occur. Finally, we also found a significant correlation between temporal specificity of gene expression and evolutionary rate, supporting expectations that genes with ubiquitous expression are under stronger constraint.ConclusionTaken together, these results support both the developmental constraint hypothesis limiting the divergence of early expressed developmentally important genes, leading to a gradient of divergence rates over ontogeny (embryonic < larval/pupal < adult), as well as Darwin's 'selection opportunity' hypothesis leading to increased divergence in adults, particularly in the case of reproductive tissues. We suggest that a constraint early/opportunity late model best explains divergence over ontogeny.

Dataset Information

Ontogeny and phylogeny of language.

Publications

Ontogeny and phylogeny of language.

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