How (and why) languages became more complex as we evolved more prosocial: the human self-domestication view
This paper aims to re-examine the problem of the emergence of present-day languages from the specific perspective of the self-domestication account of human evolution. According to this view, our species went through an evolutionary process that parallels the changes experienced by domesticated mamm...
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| Format: | article |
| Status: | Published version |
| Publication Date: | 2025 |
| Country: | España |
| Institution: | Universidad de Sevilla (US) |
| Repository: | idUS. Depósito de Investigación de la Universidad de Sevilla |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:idus.us.es:11441/180093 |
| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/11441/180093 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1499994 |
| Access Level: | Open access |
| Keyword: | language evolution language structural complexity language uses prehistory aggression human self-domestication |
| Summary: | This paper aims to re-examine the problem of the emergence of present-day languages from the specific perspective of the self-domestication account of human evolution. According to this view, our species went through an evolutionary process that parallels the changes experienced by domesticated mammals. Relying on evidence of diverse kind (from paleogenetic to clinical), the paper argues that our self-domestication might have potentiated the cognitive and behavioral features of the human phenotype with an impact on language acquisition and use. Specifically, it might have facilitated the creation of the cultural niche that favors the complexification of languages via a cultural mechanism. The paper further proposes a model of language complexification in the past under the effects of human self-domestication, including the complexification of the structural aspects of language (grammar, prosody, and semantics) and the potentiation of its functional properties (pragmatics). The paper concludes with some suggestions for any future research aimed to test and improve this view. |
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