Evolution of human vocal production
Evolution of human vocal production
复制标题
DOI：
10.1016/j.cub.2008.03.030
复制
发表时间：
2008-06-03
期刊：
影响因子：
9.2
通讯作者：
Rendall, Drew
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Ghazanfar, Asif A.;Rendall, Drew
确定人类语言进化所需的基质是很困难的，因为大多数被认为是导致人类语言的特征发声器官和大脑并不依赖于此。我们也没有任何“原始人类”的音轨可以分析。化石记录在确定史前语言能力指标方面的效用也有限。最终，我们只剩下一种可靠的方法来研究语言进化背后的生物学机制：比较方法。通过比较现存灵长类动物与人类的发声行为和生物学，我们可以推断出已灭绝的共同祖先的行为能力，从而识别同源性并为这些行为的适应功能提供线索。在这里，我们集中在我们所了解的进化的灵长类动物的发声比较的方法。
Determining the substrates required for the evolution of human speech is difficult as most traits thought to give rise to human speech—the vocal production apparatus and the brain—do not fossilize. Nor do we have any ‘proto-human’sound tracks to analyse. The fossil record is also of limited utility for identifying indicators of pre-historic linguistic abilities. Ultimately, we are left with only one reliable way of investigating the biological mechanisms underlying the evolution of speech: the comparative method. By comparing the vocal behavior and biology of extant primates with humans, we can deduce the behavioral capacities of extinct common ancestors, allowing identification of homologies and providing clues as to the adaptive functions of such behaviors. Here we focus on what we have learnt about the evolution of vocal production in primates from the comparative approach.