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Nominal classification systems such as grammatical gender (e.g., the masculine/feminine distinction in French) and noun classes (e.g., Bantu noun classes based on fruits, plants, liquids, among others) provide a window on how the human brain perceives and categorizes objects and experiences it encounters. While the diachronic development of grammatical gender systems is well studied, noun class systems have received less attention. We use phylogenetic comparative methods to analyze where noun classes are marked (on nouns, pronouns, demonstratives, articles, adjectives, numbers, and verbs) in thirty-six Atlantic languages and how these markers change diachronically. Our results show that noun class marking is generally preferred and more stable within the noun phrase, i.e., on nouns, demonstratives, and adjectives.

Credible signaling may have provided a selection pressure for producing and discriminating increasingly elaborate protomusical signals. But, why evolve them to have hierarchical structure? We argue that the hierarchality of tonality and meter is a byproduct of domain-general mechanisms evolved for reasons other than credible signaling.

The current thesis tackles the question “Why is music the way it is?” within a comparative biomusicology framework by focusing on musical syntax and its relation to syntax in language. Comparative biomusicology integrates different comparative approaches, biological frameworks as well as levels of analysis in cognitive science, and puts forward principled explanations, regarding cognitive systems as different instances of the same principles, as its central research strategy. The main goal is to provide a preliminary answer to this question in form of hypotheses about neurocognitive mechanisms, i.e., cognitive and neural processes, underlying a core function of syntactic computation in language and music, i.e., mapping hierarchical structure and temporal sequence. In particular, the relationship between language and music is discussed on the basis of a top-down approach taking syntax as combinatorial principles and a bottom-up approach taking neural structures and operations as implementational principles. On the basis of the top-down approach, the thesis identifies computational problems of musical syntax, cognitive processes and neural correlates of music syntactic processing, and the relationship to language syntax and syntactic processing. The neural correlates of music syntactic processing are investigated by ALE meta-analyses. The bottom-up approach then studies the relationship between language and music on the basis of neural processes implemented in the cortico-basal ganglia-thalamocortical circuits. The main result of the current thesis suggests that the relationship between language and music syntactic processing can be explained in terms of the same neurocognitive mechanisms with different expressions on the motor-to-cognitive gradient. The current thesis, especially its bottom-up approach, opens up a possible way going toward comparative cognitive biology, i.e., a comparative approach to cognitive systems with a greater emphasis on the biology.

It is often claimed that music and language share a process of hierarchical structure building, a mental syntax. Although several lines of research point to commonalities, and possibly a shared syntactic component, differences between language syntax and music syntax can also be found at several levels: conveyed meaning, and the atoms of combination, for example. To bring music and language closer to one another, some researchers have suggested a comparison between music and phonology (phonological syntax), but here too, one quickly arrives at a situation of intriguing similarities and obvious differences. In this paper, we suggest that a fruitful comparison between the two domains could benefit from taking the grammar of action into account. In particular, we suggest that what is called syntax can be investigated in terms of goal of action, action planning, motor control, and sensory-motor integration. At this level of comparison, we suggest that some of the differences between language and music could be explained in terms of different goals reflected in the hierarchical structures of action planning: the hierarchical structures of music arise to achieve goals with a strong relation to the affective-gestural system encoding tension-relaxation patterns as well as socio-intentional system, whereas hierarchical structures in language are embedded in a conceptual system that gives rise to compositional meaning. Similarities between music and language are most clear in the way several hierarchical plans for executing action are processed in time and sequentially integrated to achieve various goals.

A central property of human language is its hierarchical structure. Humans can flexibly combine elements to build a hierarchical structure expressing rich semantics. A hierarchical structure is also considered as playing a key role in many other human cognitive domains. In music, auditory-motor events are combined into hierarchical pitch and/or rhythm structure expressing affect. How did such a hierarchical structure building capacity evolve? This paper investigates this question from a bottom-up perspective based on a set of action-related components as a shared basis underlying cognitive capacities of nonhuman primates and humans. Especially, I argue that the evolution of hierarchical structure building capacity for language and music is tractable for comparative evolutionary study once we focus on the gradual elaboration of shared brain architecture: the cortico-basal ganglia-thalamocortical circuits for hierarchical control of goal-directed action and the dorsal pathways for hierarchical internal models. I suggest that this gradual elaboration of the action-related brain architecture in the context of vocal control and tool-making went hand in hand with amplification of working memory, and made the brain ready for hierarchical structure building in language and music.

A central property of human language is its hierarchical structure. Humans can flexibly combine elements to build a hierarchical structure expressing rich semantics. A hierarchical structure is also considered as playing a key role in many other human cognitive domains. In music, auditory-motor events are combined into hierarchical pitch and/or rhythm structure expressing affect. How did such a hierarchical structure building capacity evolve? This paper investigates this question from a bottom-up perspective based on a set of action-related components as a shared basis underlying cognitive capacities of nonhuman primates and humans. Especially, I argue that the evolution of hierarchical structure building capacity for language and music is tractable for comparative evolutionary study once we focus on the gradual elaboration of shared brain architecture: the cortico-basal ganglia-thalamocortical circuits for hierarchical control of goal-directed action and the dorsal pathways for hierarchical internal models. I suggest that this gradual elaboration of the action-related brain architecture in the context of vocal control and tool-making went hand in hand with amplification of working memory, and made the brain ready for hierarchical structure building in language and music.