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Reflexivity, Functional Reference, and Modularity: Alternative Targets for Language Origins

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Travis LaCroix
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Abstract

Researchers of language origins typically try to explain how compositional communication might evolve to bridge the gap between animal communication and natural language. However, as an explanatory target, compositionality has been shown to be problematic for a gradualist approach to the evolution of language. In this article, I suggest that reflexivity provides an apt and plausible alternative target that does not succumb to the problems that compositionality faces. I further explain how protoreflexivity, which depends on functional reference, gives rise to complex communication systems via modular composition.

Type
Biological Sciences
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 88 , Issue 5 , December 2021 , pp. 1234 - 1245
Copyright
Copyright 2021 by the Philosophy of Science Association. All rights reserved.

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Footnotes

†

This article is based on my dissertation defense, which took place in March 2020 at the University of California, Irvine. Since this research is indebted to that larger project, many thanks are in order, especially to Jeffrey A. Barrett, Yoshua Bengio, Brian Skyrms, Simon Huttegger, Josh Armstrong, Cailin O’Connor, Aydin Mohseni, Daniel Herrmann, and many others. Thanks also to the Schwartz Reisman Institute at the University of Toronto for partially funding this research and to Mila—Québec Artificial Intelligence Institute for providing generous resources.

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