🗣️
HC1: Introduction
Date @31/03/2025
courses 🎤 Evolution of language and music
Lecture
1. Uniqueness of language
What is special about human language?
Starting point: design features by Charles Hocket: useful for studying this more precisely
1. Meaning of language
Are these features unique to humans?
word meanings are conventional and (8) arbitrary: no direct connection between a word’s form and its
meaning
example: long words for big animals: whale
❌ arbitrariness in other animals: e.g vervet monkey alarm calls, different calls for different predators to
elicit different reactions
but this might be largely innate and not learned
words and their meanings are learned
❌ also vocal learning in other animals
learning fase in songbirds, need to hear adults singing to produce songs
seal adopted by fishermen produces sounds that sound like human words
languages are transmitted culturally and slowly change over generations, giving rise to an enormous variety
❌ cultural transmission in whales
songs do not have meaning (as far as we know), so we can’t say anything about arbitrariness
2. Language structure
1. inventory of meaningless units: sounds/vowels = phonemes
minimal difference in sound that corresponds to a difference in meaning
minimal pairs: e.g bed / bad / bet / bat
phonemes are different in every language and dialect, but phonemic coding is universal
2. inventory of meaningful units: words
(7) semanticity: arbitrary signals transmit meaningful messages
HC1: Introduction 1
, (10) displacement: meaningful words even for things that are not here and now
3. Inventory of meaningful sentences
(11) productivity: combine meaningful units (morphemes and words) into more complex units (phrases and
sentences)
number of words a language has is finite
number of possible sentences that can be constructed is infinite = recursion
phrases of category X (e.g noun phrase) can be embedded in a phrase of the same category X
❌ humpback whales and birds songs are also a combination of units, but not of meaningful units
📌 Conclusion: None of these seem to be unique to humans
Learning about how they occur in other species can teach us about their function and evolutionairy history
3. Combining structure and meaning
Compositionality: the meaning of a complex whole is a function of the meanings of its parts, and the way in which
they are combined
❌ call combinations in Olive colobus calls
2. Uniqueness of music
Design features:
lack of semantics
Discreteness of pitch
we can assign pitch to some sounds but not other
recognize intervals like octaves
Discreteness of beat
Prediction
Emotional/motivational aspects
cultural tranmission
vocal learning
Discreteness of pitch and beat perception
3. Methodology
1. Evolution and evidence
Evolution does not follow one line, it is more tree like and messy
There is very little evidence for language evolutions and there are some very drastic changes in a short period
Sources: evolutionairy biology, linguistics & musicology, comparitive biology, genetics, archeological records,
behavioral experiments, computational modeling & analysis.
These different evidence types need to be combined to make for powerful and testable hypotheses.
2. Opposed views
HC1: Introduction 2
, innate vs learned
sudden vs gradual evolution
for communication vs by-product of evolution
biological vs cultural phenomenon
General agreement: language is a multi-faceted phenomenon, aspects of language can have different histories,
biological and cultural processes play a role
Revision
1. Questions
What are some design features of the meaning of language and is this unique for humans?
What are some design features of the structure of language and is this unique for humans?
What are some desing features of music?
2. Terms
Arbitrariness – no direct link between signal and meaning
Phoneme – smallest unit of sound that distinguishes meaning
Minimal pair – two words differing by only one phoneme (e.g. bit vs. pit)
Semanticity – signals have specific meanings
Displacement – ability to refer to things not present
Productivity – infinite expression using finite means
Recursion – rules that allow self-embedding structures
Compositionality – meanings of parts + structure = meaning of the whole
HC1: Introduction 3
, 🎶
HC2: Musicality & melodic cognition
Date @03/04/2025
courses 🎤 Evolution of language and music
Lecture 2
Music is universal, it exists in every society
There is tremendous diversity in music: differes between cultures and places
Core question: Why are humans such musical beings?
1. Music & musicality
Music: humanly organised sounds or a cultural behavior (construct) based on our musicality.
→ studied via the cultural evolution of music
Musicality: a set of biological or cognitive traits that underlie our musics.
→ studied via the (biological) evolution of musicality
multicomponent perspective: isolate the properties and genes involved in the components of music
vertical axis of a spectogram: melodic cognition
notes (pitched sounds), overtones / harmonics, intervals, pitchclass, scales, consonnance, disonnace,
timbre (quality of the sound)
horizontal axis: rhythm cognition
2. Sound
= complex wave, can be visualised by its waveform
Consists of many simple waves with different frequencies: components or partials
HC2: Musicality & melodic cognition 1
HC1: Introduction
Date @31/03/2025
courses 🎤 Evolution of language and music
Lecture
1. Uniqueness of language
What is special about human language?
Starting point: design features by Charles Hocket: useful for studying this more precisely
1. Meaning of language
Are these features unique to humans?
word meanings are conventional and (8) arbitrary: no direct connection between a word’s form and its
meaning
example: long words for big animals: whale
❌ arbitrariness in other animals: e.g vervet monkey alarm calls, different calls for different predators to
elicit different reactions
but this might be largely innate and not learned
words and their meanings are learned
❌ also vocal learning in other animals
learning fase in songbirds, need to hear adults singing to produce songs
seal adopted by fishermen produces sounds that sound like human words
languages are transmitted culturally and slowly change over generations, giving rise to an enormous variety
❌ cultural transmission in whales
songs do not have meaning (as far as we know), so we can’t say anything about arbitrariness
2. Language structure
1. inventory of meaningless units: sounds/vowels = phonemes
minimal difference in sound that corresponds to a difference in meaning
minimal pairs: e.g bed / bad / bet / bat
phonemes are different in every language and dialect, but phonemic coding is universal
2. inventory of meaningful units: words
(7) semanticity: arbitrary signals transmit meaningful messages
HC1: Introduction 1
, (10) displacement: meaningful words even for things that are not here and now
3. Inventory of meaningful sentences
(11) productivity: combine meaningful units (morphemes and words) into more complex units (phrases and
sentences)
number of words a language has is finite
number of possible sentences that can be constructed is infinite = recursion
phrases of category X (e.g noun phrase) can be embedded in a phrase of the same category X
❌ humpback whales and birds songs are also a combination of units, but not of meaningful units
📌 Conclusion: None of these seem to be unique to humans
Learning about how they occur in other species can teach us about their function and evolutionairy history
3. Combining structure and meaning
Compositionality: the meaning of a complex whole is a function of the meanings of its parts, and the way in which
they are combined
❌ call combinations in Olive colobus calls
2. Uniqueness of music
Design features:
lack of semantics
Discreteness of pitch
we can assign pitch to some sounds but not other
recognize intervals like octaves
Discreteness of beat
Prediction
Emotional/motivational aspects
cultural tranmission
vocal learning
Discreteness of pitch and beat perception
3. Methodology
1. Evolution and evidence
Evolution does not follow one line, it is more tree like and messy
There is very little evidence for language evolutions and there are some very drastic changes in a short period
Sources: evolutionairy biology, linguistics & musicology, comparitive biology, genetics, archeological records,
behavioral experiments, computational modeling & analysis.
These different evidence types need to be combined to make for powerful and testable hypotheses.
2. Opposed views
HC1: Introduction 2
, innate vs learned
sudden vs gradual evolution
for communication vs by-product of evolution
biological vs cultural phenomenon
General agreement: language is a multi-faceted phenomenon, aspects of language can have different histories,
biological and cultural processes play a role
Revision
1. Questions
What are some design features of the meaning of language and is this unique for humans?
What are some design features of the structure of language and is this unique for humans?
What are some desing features of music?
2. Terms
Arbitrariness – no direct link between signal and meaning
Phoneme – smallest unit of sound that distinguishes meaning
Minimal pair – two words differing by only one phoneme (e.g. bit vs. pit)
Semanticity – signals have specific meanings
Displacement – ability to refer to things not present
Productivity – infinite expression using finite means
Recursion – rules that allow self-embedding structures
Compositionality – meanings of parts + structure = meaning of the whole
HC1: Introduction 3
, 🎶
HC2: Musicality & melodic cognition
Date @03/04/2025
courses 🎤 Evolution of language and music
Lecture 2
Music is universal, it exists in every society
There is tremendous diversity in music: differes between cultures and places
Core question: Why are humans such musical beings?
1. Music & musicality
Music: humanly organised sounds or a cultural behavior (construct) based on our musicality.
→ studied via the cultural evolution of music
Musicality: a set of biological or cognitive traits that underlie our musics.
→ studied via the (biological) evolution of musicality
multicomponent perspective: isolate the properties and genes involved in the components of music
vertical axis of a spectogram: melodic cognition
notes (pitched sounds), overtones / harmonics, intervals, pitchclass, scales, consonnance, disonnace,
timbre (quality of the sound)
horizontal axis: rhythm cognition
2. Sound
= complex wave, can be visualised by its waveform
Consists of many simple waves with different frequencies: components or partials
HC2: Musicality & melodic cognition 1
