Hostname: page-component-77f85d65b8-lfk5g Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-03-29T10:33:08.974Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

What about language?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2025

Antonio Benítez-Burraco Open the ORCID record for Antonio Benítez-Burraco [Opens in a new window]
Antonio Benítez-Burraco*
Affiliation:
Department of Spanish, Linguistics, and Theory of Literature (Linguistics), Faculty of Philology, University of Seville, Seville, Spain abenitez8@us.es; http://antoniobenitez.wix.com/benitez-burraco
*
*Corresponding author.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Myths about a remote shared past can certainly promote cooperation between distantly related people, seemingly via their impact on our social cognition, and ultimately facilitate the achievement of complex tasks in large-scale societies. Nonetheless, the creation and transmission of these complex narratives are not possible without the parallel development of sophisticated language(s), endowed with properties like displacement (enabling mental travels in space and time) and complex syntax (enabling the assembly and communication of complex thoughts).

Information

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 47 , 2024 , e173
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Benítez-Burraco, A. (2021). Mental time travel, language evolution, and human self-domestication. Cognitive Processing, 22(2), 363–367. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10339-020-01005-2CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Benítez-Burraco, A., & Progovac, L. (2020). A four-stage model for language evolution under the effects of human self-domestication. Language & Communication, 73, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langcom.2020.03.002CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Corballis, M. C. (2018). Space, time, and language. Cognitive Processing, 19(Suppl 1), 89–92. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10339-018-0878-1CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Corballis, M. C. (2019). Mental time travel, language, and evolution. Neuropsychologia, 134, 107202. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2019.107202CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dunbar, R. I. M. (2014). How conversations around campfires came to be. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, 111(39), 14013–14014. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1416382111CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dunbar, R. I. M. (2018). The anatomy of friendship. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 22(1), 32–51. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2017.10.004CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dunbar, R. I. M. (2021). Virtual touch and the human social world. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 43, 14–19. doi: 10.1016/j.cobeha.2021.06.009CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferretti, F., Adornetti, I., Chiera, A., Nicchiarelli, S., Magni, R., Valeri, G., & Marini, A. (2017). Mental time travel and language evolution: A narrative account of the origins of human communication. Language Sciences, 63, 105–118.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hauser, M. D., Chomsky, N., & Fitch, W. T. (2002). The faculty of language: What is it, who has it, and how did it evolve? Science, 298(5598), 1569–1579. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.298.5598.1569CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hockett, C. F. (1960). The origin of speech. Scientific American, 203(3), 89–96. https://doi.org/10.1038/scientificamerican0960-88CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McEwen, B. S., Eiland, L., Hunter, R. G., & Miller, M. M. (2012). Stress and anxiety: Structural plasticity and epigenetic regulation as a consequence of stress. Neuropharmacology, 62(1), 3–12. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropharm.2011.07.014CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pinker, S., & Bloom, P. (1990). Natural language and natural selection. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 13(4), 707–727.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Progovac, L., & Benítez-Burraco, A. (2019). From physical aggression to verbal behavior: Language evolution and self-domestication feedback loop. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 2807. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02807CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tulving, E. (2001). Episodic memory and common sense: How far apart? Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 356(1413), 1505–1515. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2001.0937CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed