Infant-directed speech and the evolution of language

Language is an extremely complex phenomenon and evolutionary accounts of it are therefore often considered problematic. Previous work by the author has been concerned with finding mechanisms that could suggest a simplification of the way in which language has evolved. One such factor is self-organization in a population, as explored in de Boer (2000, 2001a). However, in this chapter another mechanism is explored, one that is based on bootstrapping. I investigate whether speech might be more learnable if infants are first confronted with an easier-to-learn version, called infant-directed speech. For work on self-organization, readers are referred to Oudeyer’s work (Chapter 4) in this volume.