https://chrisroutsis.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/skipper-et-al-2007.pdf

Speech-associated gestures, Broca's area, and the human mirror system.

Any account of “what is special about the human brain” (Passingham 2008) must specify the neural basis of our unique ability to produce speech and delineate how these remarkable motor capabilities could have emerged in our hominin ancestors. Clinical data suggest that the basal ganglia provide a platform for the integration of primate-general mechanisms of acoustic communication with the faculty of articulate speech in humans. Furthermore, neurobiological and paleoanthropological data point at a two-stage model of the phylogenetic evolution of this crucial prerequisite of spoken language: (i) monosynaptic refinement of the projections of motor cortex to the brainstem nuclei that steer laryngeal muscles, presumably, as part of a “phylogenetic trend” associated with increasing brain size during hominin evolution; (ii) subsequent vocal-laryngeal elaboration of cortico-basal ganglia circuitries, driven by human-specific FOXP2 mutations.;>This concept implies vocal continuity of spoken language evolution at the motor level, elucidating the deep entrenchment of articulate speech into a “nonverbal matrix” (Ingold 1994), which is not accounted for by gestural-origin theories. Moreover, it provides a solution to the question for the adaptive value of the “first word” (Bickerton 2009) since even the earliest and most simple verbal utterances must have increased the versatility of vocal displays afforded by the preceding elaboration of monosynaptic corticobulbar tracts, giving rise to enhanced social cooperation and prestige. At the ontogenetic level, the proposed model assumes age-dependent interactions between the basal ganglia and their cortical targets, similar to vocal learning in some songbirds. In this view, the emergence of articulate speech builds on the “renaissance” of an ancient organizational principle and, hence, may represent an example of “evolutionary tinkering” (Jacob 1977).

/pdf/brain-mechanisms-of-acoustic-communication-in-humans-and-59olrd9jl8.pdf

Brain mechanisms of acoustic communication in humans and nonhuman primates: An evolutionary perspective

The Two-Level Theory of verb meaning: An approach to integrating the semantics of action with the mirror neuron system

In this thesis I explore and formalize the view that grammar learning is driven by meaningful language use in context. On this view, the goal of a first language learner is to become a better language user—in particular, by acquiring linguistic constructions (structured mappings between form and meaning) that facilitate successful communication. I present a computational model in which all aspects of the language learning problem are reformulated in line with these assumptions. The representational basis of the model is a construction grammar formalism that captures constituent structure and relational constraints, both within and across the domains of form and meaning. This formalism plays a central role in two processes: language understanding, which uses constuctions to interpret utterances in context; and language learning, which seeks to improve comprehension by making judicious changes to the current set of constructions. 
The resulting integrated model of language structure, use and acquisition provides a cognitively motivated and computationally precise account of how children acquire their earliest multi-word constructions. I define a set of operations for proposing new constructions, either to capture contextually available mappings not predicted by the current grammar, or to reorganize existing constructions. Candidate constructions are evaluated using a minimum description length criterion that balances a structural bias toward simpler grammars against a data-driven bias toward more specific grammars. When trained with a corpus of child-directed utterances annotated with situation descriptions, the model gradually acquires the concrete word combinations and item-based constructions that constitute the first steps toward adult language.

/pdf/constructing-grammar-a-computational-model-of-the-emergence-4swm5yu2vt.pdf

Constructing grammar: a computational model of the emergence of early constructions

Neuroeconomics stays in the center of the ongoing naturalistic turn in economics. It portrays the individual as a complex system of decision making mechanisms and modules. This results into a conceptual tension with the standard economic notion of the unity of the actor that is a systemic property of economic coordination. I propose to supplement neuroeconomics with a naturalistic theory of social coordination. Recent neurobiological and psychological research strongly supports claims made by some heterodox economists that the identity of actors emerges from social interaction, especially in the context of the use of language. Therefore I argue that the completion of the neuroeconomic paradigm requires a naturalistic theory of language. I provide some sketches based on teleosemantics and memetics, and exemplify the argument by a naturalist account of money.

/pdf/neuroeconomics-naturalism-and-language-2qceeobnxo.pdf

Neuroeconomics, Naturalism, and Language

Introduction Our progress towards an understanding of how the human brain evolved to be ready for language starts with the mirror neurons for grasping in the brain of the macaque monkey. Area F5 of the macaque brain is part of premotor cortex, i.e., F5 is part of the area of cerebral cortex just in front of the primary motor cortex shown as F1 in Fig. 1.1 (left). Different parts of F5 contain neurons active during manual and orofacial actions. Crucially for us, an anatomically segregated subset of these neurons are mirror neurons . Each such mirror neuron is active not only when the monkey performs actions of a certain kind (e.g., a precision pinch or a power grasp) but also when the monkey observes a human or another monkey perform a more or less similar action. In humans, we cannot measure the activity of single neurons (save when needed for testing during neurosurgery) but we can gather comparatively crude data on the relative blood flow through (and thus, presumably, the neural activity of) a brain region when the human performs one task or another. We may then ask whether the human brain also contains a “mirror system for grasping” in the sense of a region active for both execution and observation of manual actions as compared to some baseline task like simply observing an object. Remarkably, such sites were found in frontal, parietal, and temporal cortex of the human brain.

Action to Language via the Mirror Neuron System: The Mirror System Hypothesis on the linkage of action and languages

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Action to Language via the Mirror Neuron System: The Mirror System Hypothesis on the linkage of action and languages