ABSTRACT
It is the thesis of this chapter that parsing has its evolutionary origins in an unexpected place. Extensive study for many years has focused on primate vocalizations, driven partly by theoretical interest in language origins and partly by the availability of sound-manipulation technology. It is no coincidence that the theory of behavior parsing should have been developed to explain great ape manual behavior. Other statistical regularities derive from modular structure and hierarchical organization. If the behavior parsing model is correct, human language and speech evolved in a species that was already able to parse hierarchically organized behavior—which might be no coincidence. This chapter argues that parsing was originally part of a feeding adaptation, and that these derived abilities for efficient feeding were themselves based on earlier evolution of abilities in social behavior reading.
