In recent years, multiple researchers working on the evolution of language have put forward the idea that the theoretical framework of usage-based approaches and Construction Grammar is highly suitable for modelling the emergence of human language from pre-linguistic or proto-linguistic communication systems. This also raises the question of whether usage-based and constructionist approaches can be integrated with the analysis of animal communication systems. In this paper, we review possible avenues where usage-based, constructionist approaches can make contact with animal communication research, (...) which in turn also has implications for theories of language evolution. To this end, we first give an overview of key assumptions of usage-based and constructionist approaches before reviewing some key issues in animal communication research through the lens of usage-based, constructionist approaches. Specifically, we will discuss how research on alarm calls, gestural communication and symbol-trained animals can be brought into contact with usage-based, constructionist theorizing. We argue that a constructionist view of animal communication can yield new perspectives on its relation to human language, which in turn has important implications regarding the evolution of language. Importantly, this theoretical approach also generates hypotheses that have the potential of complementing and extending results from the more formalist approaches that often underlie current animal communication research. (shrink)

As with biological systems, spoken languages are strikingly robust against perturbations. This paper shows that languages achieve robustness in a way that is highly similar to many biological systems. For example, speech sounds are encoded via multiple acoustically diverse, temporally distributed and functionally redundant cues, characteristics that bear similarities to what biologists call “degeneracy”. Speech is furthermore adequately characterized by neutrality, with many different tongue configurations leading to similar acoustic outputs, and different acoustic variants understood as the same by recipients. (...) This highlights the presence of a large neutral network of acoustic neighbors for every speech sound. Such neutrality ensures that a steady backdrop of variation can be maintained without impeding communication, assuring that there is “fodder” for subsequent evolution. Thus, studying linguistic robustness is not only important for understanding how linguistic systems maintain their functioning upon the background of noise, but also for understanding the preconditions for language evolution. (shrink)