Even in college it was obvious that yawning was socially contagious (remember Biology class with D. Shepro?) and had little to do with the need for air - a need well satisified by breathing. One even sees 6 week old embryo's yawning in videos. Best guess: it is a showing of fangs. It is social behavior and means: "Leave me alone...I am not threatened by you".
Sighing, we have noticed, makes a very expressive sound - like the two note descending sound of disappointment. How is it anything other than language? If you sat in my cubicle with me and listened to my coworkers, you would hear them sigh upon occasion, and certainly they would hear me when I do it.
I find it absurd that these pre-verbal linguistic behaviors would be considered auxiliary functions to breathing. You could imagine alien scientists who knew about eating but not about spoken language concluding that all human language was a complex mechanisms for exercising the tongue.
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