Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-30T23:07:52.930Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

How plausible is the motherese hypothesis?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 February 2005

Paul Bouissac
Paul Bouissac*
Affiliation:
French Linguistics, University of Toronto-Victoria College, Toronto, Ontario M5S 1K7, Canadahttp://www.semioticon.com/Bouissac/Home.htm
*
[email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract:

Falk's hypothesis is attractive and seems to be supported by data from primatology and language acquisition literature. However, this etiological narrative presents a fairly low degree of plausibility, the result of two epistemological fallacies: an implicit reliance on a unilinear model of causality and the explicit belief that ontogeny is homologous to phylogeny. Although this attempt to retrace the early emergence of prelinguistic capacities in hominins falls short of producing a compelling argument, it does call attention to an aspect of linguistic behavior which may indeed have evolved under the pressure of nurturing constraints.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 27 , Issue 4 , August 2004 , pp. 506 - 507
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2004

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)