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How the Brain Got Language – Towards a New Road Map
Edited by Michael A. Arbib
[Benjamins Current Topics 112] 2020
► pp. 370–387

The comparative neuroprimatology 2018 (CNP-2018) road map for research on How the Brain Got Language

| University of California at San Diego
| Universidad Católica de Chile
| Universität Zürich
| University of Auckland
| Institut des Sciences Cognitives Marc Jeannerod – CNRS
| Georgia State University
| Freie Universität Berlin
| Kyoto University
| Brandeis University
| Indiana University
| University of California at San Diego
| Glendon College of York University
| Indiana University
| Hunan University
| University of California at San Diego
| Hunan University
| Emory University
| Italian National Research Council, CNR
| Nicolaus Copernicus University
| Newcastle University

We present a new road map for research on “How the Brain Got Language” that adopts an EvoDevoSocio perspective and highlights comparative neuroprimatology – the comparative study of brain, behavior and communication in extant monkeys and great apes – as providing a key grounding for hypotheses on the last common ancestor of humans and monkeys (LCA-m) and chimpanzees (LCA-c) and the processes which guided the evolution LCA-m → LCA-c → protohumans → H. sapiens. Such research constrains and is constrained by analysis of the subsequent, primarily cultural, evolution of H. sapiens which yielded cultures involving the rich use of language.

Keywords: brain evolution, cultural evolution, EvoDevoSocio, language-ready brain, language evolution, neurolinguistics, neuroprimatology, primate communication, protolanguage, social interaction
Article outline
  • An overall perspective
  • Aspects of language to be explained
    • Language is a special form of communication
      • Lexicon and grammar
      • The endless aboutness of language
    • Social structure and the motivation to converse
    • Action, gesture and language
  • Methodologies
    • Neurophysiology and comparative neuroanatomy
    • Behavior, social structure and communication
    • Archeology
    • High-level theory
    • Modeling and mechanism
    • Genetics
  • Road map preliminaries
    • Establishing the “Stages”
    • In search of precise terminology
    • Beyond the primates
  • The CNP-2018 road map
    • Capabilities of LCA-m
    • Capabilities of LCA-c
    • Hominins prior to Homo sapiens
    • Post-biological evolution in Homo sapiens
  • Envoi
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
Published online: 11 August 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/bct.112.23arb
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