Lexicon of Arguments

 

I 333
Language/Evolution/Allen/Saidel: to what extent can different functions of language be separated from each other and be proved in different phylogenetic groups?
a) harder line: (stronger separation of man and animal): Homology (common precursors) is necessary, homoplasia (convergent evolution) is not sufficient.
Vs: that's premature. Although homology provides more evidence of a common historical path, but also Homoplasia provides relevant information: it presupposes a similar selection pressure. It can also uncover general principles.
I 335
Language/Evolution/Allen/Saidel: if they are to be homologous, there must have been a common ancestor with the disposition to it.
I 336
To answer this, one needs comparative work on people, apes, monkeys and nonprimates.
I 339
Animal/Species/Reference/Allen/Saidel: E.g. Seyfarth, warning calls from long-tailed monkeys offspring must be confirmed (repeated) by adults so that they are taken seriously by the others.⁽¹⁾
I 340
Shared attention/language/animal/Allen/Saidel: if it is present, the utterances of humans and adult animals maintain the same relations to the objects of attention.
>Reference, >Animals, >Animal language.

Seyfarth, R. M., Cheney, D. L., & Marler, P. (1980): Vervet monkey alarm calls: Semantic communication in a free-ranging primate. Animal Behaviour, 28(4), 1070–1094.