Abstract

Research goal: to produce a large-scale, coarse-grained, integrative theory of how human language is likely to have evolved. The objective is to come up with an overall framework and methodology that is useful for further studies.

Theory: First, that human language is a communication component of coordinated complementary skills (division of labour) that require external communication for coordination.

We start with three assumptions (perspective?):

• that human communication, i.e. language use, can be analyzed as skills that integrate action and perception along with communication,
• and that these skills can be analyzed as information processing problems
• and that a requirements, constraints, and feasibility approach can be used (as for other complex systems).
• that evolution can be analyzed as a problem involving copying information from a parent population to a child population,
• that skills evolve through the evolutionary mechanisms of variation, selection, and copying,
• and that different implementations of the same mechanisms are likely to have equivalent evolutionary effects.
• that requirements, constraints, and feasibility studies will help to identify and clarify how complex skills are likely to work and how they are likely to evolve,
• that feasible solutions are likely to resemble those found by nature,
• and that such feasible solutions are likely to help to identify further requirements and constraints, which in turn can lead to further clarifications and insights.