Detail of contribution
Auteur: Kumon Kimiaki TOKUMARU
Titre:
The Digital Language operated by Logical Syllables - Hypotheses for the Origin and Mechanism of Human Language
Abstract/Résumé: Human language is a complex system. Its mechanism and origin have been the greatest enigma of human evolution and there is not a single hypothesis to explain them. The critical importance of immunology and information theory to language mechanism was briefly investigated respectively by Jerne and von Neumann. The author divides Chomsky's conundrum into two separate questions in noisy communication channel and low-noise brain information processing circuits: a) Why can a speaker speak out a linguistic message just once and listeners can receive that message without a single syllabic error? And b) Why can a speaker connect concepts with grammars and compose an appropriate message unconsciously, and listeners can reconstruct complex meanings of that message automatically with full understanding of grammatical modulations? The clarification of these channel and source coding mechanisms brought several hypotheses for: (1) the logical syllables, a unique difference between human and non-human vocal communication; (2) a two-stage acquisition process of human language in the Late-Pleistocene, i.e. click consonant phonemes for conceptualization and, later, with laryngeal descent and vowels for grammatical articulation; (3) a neuro-physiological mechanism for concept and grammar by Immune Response including Fc-ligand signaling inside Cerebrospinal Fluid in Ventricular System; and (4) a logical fractal mechanism of multi-order complex concept. It is possible that modern humans acquired logical syllables and digitalized vocal communication between the periods 77ka-70ka for the Still Bay technocomplex and 66ka – 58ka for the Howiesons Poort technocomplex in South Africa. Potential regions of evolution for Laryngeal Descent could include some of the oldest known sites with modern human fossils, such as Klasies River and Border Cave that have not been integrated into the genesis of modern humans, and a large number of caves and rock shelters where Still Bay and/or Howieson’s Poort artefacts have been found without substantial human remains, such as Boomplaas, Diepkloof, Klein Kliphuis, Melikane, Rose Cottage, Sibudu, Blombos and Umhlatuzana (Lombard et al. 2012:137-138). I am very grateful to the late Prof Hilary Deacon (1936-2010) for discussions with me on Klasies River in 2009, but the ideas presented here are my own.
Titre:
The Digital Language operated by Logical Syllables - Hypotheses for the Origin and Mechanism of Human Language
Abstract/Résumé: Human language is a complex system. Its mechanism and origin have been the greatest enigma of human evolution and there is not a single hypothesis to explain them. The critical importance of immunology and information theory to language mechanism was briefly investigated respectively by Jerne and von Neumann. The author divides Chomsky's conundrum into two separate questions in noisy communication channel and low-noise brain information processing circuits: a) Why can a speaker speak out a linguistic message just once and listeners can receive that message without a single syllabic error? And b) Why can a speaker connect concepts with grammars and compose an appropriate message unconsciously, and listeners can reconstruct complex meanings of that message automatically with full understanding of grammatical modulations? The clarification of these channel and source coding mechanisms brought several hypotheses for: (1) the logical syllables, a unique difference between human and non-human vocal communication; (2) a two-stage acquisition process of human language in the Late-Pleistocene, i.e. click consonant phonemes for conceptualization and, later, with laryngeal descent and vowels for grammatical articulation; (3) a neuro-physiological mechanism for concept and grammar by Immune Response including Fc-ligand signaling inside Cerebrospinal Fluid in Ventricular System; and (4) a logical fractal mechanism of multi-order complex concept. It is possible that modern humans acquired logical syllables and digitalized vocal communication between the periods 77ka-70ka for the Still Bay technocomplex and 66ka – 58ka for the Howiesons Poort technocomplex in South Africa. Potential regions of evolution for Laryngeal Descent could include some of the oldest known sites with modern human fossils, such as Klasies River and Border Cave that have not been integrated into the genesis of modern humans, and a large number of caves and rock shelters where Still Bay and/or Howieson’s Poort artefacts have been found without substantial human remains, such as Boomplaas, Diepkloof, Klein Kliphuis, Melikane, Rose Cottage, Sibudu, Blombos and Umhlatuzana (Lombard et al. 2012:137-138). I am very grateful to the late Prof Hilary Deacon (1936-2010) for discussions with me on Klasies River in 2009, but the ideas presented here are my own.