Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T22:45:06.803Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Languages as evolving organisms – The solution to the logical problem of language evolution?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 October 2008

Christina Behme
Christina Behme
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, B3H 4P9, [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Christiansen & Chater (C&C) argue persuasively that Universal Grammar (UG) could not have arisen through evolutionary processes. I provide additional suggestions to strengthen the argument against UG evolution. Further, I suggest that C&C's solution to the logical problem of language evolution faces several problems. Widening the focus to mechanisms of general cognition and inclusion of animal communication research might overcome these problems.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 31 , Issue 5 , October 2008 , pp. 512 - 513
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

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.)

References

Arnold, K. & Zuberbühler, K. (2006) Language evolution: Semantic combinations in primate calls. Nature 441:303.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Atkinson, Q., Meade, A., Venditti, C., Greenhill, S. & Pagel, M. (2008) Languages evolve in punctuational bursts. Science 319:588.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bichakjian, B. (2002) Language in a Darwinian perspective. Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Bickerton, D. (2003) Symbol and structure: A comprehensive framework for language evolution. In: Language evolution, ed. Christiansen, M. H. & Kirby, S., pp. 77–93. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Burling, R. (2000) Comprehension, production and conventionalization in the origins of language. In: The evolutionary emergence of language, ed. Knight, C., Studdert-Kennedy, M. & Hurford, J., pp. 27–39. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Burling, R. (2005) The talking ape. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chomsky, N. (1986) Knowledge of language. Praeger.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N. (1995) The minimalist program. MIT Press.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N. (2002) On nature and language. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N. (2005b) Three factors in language design. Linguistic Inquiry 36:1–22.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N. (2006) Language and mind. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Clark, A. (1996) Linguistic anchors in the sea of thought. Pragmatics and Cognition 4:93–103.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cowie, F. (1999) What's within? Nativism reconsidered. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Crain, S. & Pietroski, P. (2001) Nature, nurture and universal grammar. Linguistics and Philosophy 24:139–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deacon, T. W. (1997) The symbolic species: The co-evolution of language and the brain. W. W. Norton/Penguin.Google Scholar
Doupe, A. & Kuhl, P. (1999) Birdsong and human speech: Common themes and mechanisms. Annual Review of Neuroscience 22:567–631.Google Scholar
Dunbar, R. I. M. (2005) Brains cognition, and the evolution of culture. In: Evolution and culture, ed. Levinson, S. & Jaisson, P., pp. 169–80. MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fitch, W. T. (2005) The evolution of language: A comparative review. Biology and Philosophy 20:193–230.Google Scholar
Fitch, W. T., Hauser, M. & Chomsky, N. (2005) The evolution of the language faculty: Clarifications and implications. Cognition 97:179–210.Google Scholar
Franks, B. & Rigby, K. (2005) Deception and mate selection: Some implications for relevance and the evolution of language. In: Language origins: Perspectives on evolution, ed. Tallerman, M., pp. 208–29. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gentner, T., Fenn, K., Margoliash, D. & Nusbaum, H. (2006) Recursive syntactic pattern learning by songbirds. Nature 440:1204–207.Google Scholar
Gould, S. J. & Vrba, E. S. (1982) Exaptation–A missing term in the science of form. Paleobiology 8:4–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hauser, M. D., Chomsky, N. & Fitch, W. T. (2002) The faculty of language: What is it, who has it, and how did it evolve? Science 298(5598):1569–79.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hauser, M., Newport, E. & Aslin, R. (2001) Segmentation of the speech stream in a nonhuman primate: Statistical learning in cotton-top tamarins. Cognition 78:53–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jackendoff, R. (2002) Foundations of language: Brain, meaning, grammar, evolution. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Jackendoff, R. (2007) Language, consciousness, culture–Essays on mental structure. MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johansson, S. (2005) Origins of language. John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Kortlandt, F. (2003) The origin and nature of the linguistic parasite. In: Language in time and space: A Festschrift for Werner Winter on the occasion of his 80th birthday, ed. Bauer, B. & Pinault, G., pp. 241–44. Mouton de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lightfoot, D. (1999) The development of language: Acquisition, change and evolution. Blackwell.Google Scholar
Marcus, G. (1998) Can connectionism save constructivism? Cognition 66:153–82.Google Scholar
Marcus, G. (2001) The algebraic mind: Integrating connectionism and cognitive science. MIT Press.Google Scholar
Miller, G. (2000) The mating mind. Doubleday.Google Scholar
Origgi, G. & Sperber, D. (2000) Evolution, communication and the proper function of language. In: Evolution and the human mind, ed. Carruthers, P. & Chamberlain, A., pp. 140–69. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Orlov, T., Yakolev, V., Hochstein, S. & Zohary, E. (2000) Macaque monkeys categorize images by their ordinal number. Nature 404:77–80.Google Scholar
Pepperberg, I. (2000) The Alex Studies: Cognitive and communicative abilities of Grey parrots. Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Perruchet, P. & Rey, A. (2005) Does the mastery of center-embedded linguistic structures distinguish humans from nonhuman primates? Psychonomic Bulletin and Review 12:307–13.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pullum, G. & Scholz, B. (2002) Empirical assessment of stimulus poverty arguments. The Linguistic Review 19:9–50.Google Scholar
Ramus, F., Hauser, M., Miller, C., Morris, D. & Mehler, J. (2000) Language discrimination by human newborns and by cotton-top tamarin monkeys. Science 288:340–51.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ritt, N. (2004) Selfish sounds and linguistic evolution: A Darwinian approach to language change. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Russell, J. (2004) What is language development? Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Terrace, H. (2001) Chunking and serially organized behavior in pigeons, monkeys and humans. In: Avian visual cognition, ed. Cook, R.. [Online publication]. Available at: http://www.pigeon.psy.tufts.edu/avc/terrace/.Google Scholar
Tomasello, M. (2003) Constructing a language: A usage-based theory of language acquisition. Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
van Driem, G. (2005) The language organism: The Leiden theory of language evolution. In: Language acquisition, change and emergence: Essays in evolutionary linguistics, ed. Minett, J. & Wang, W., pp. 331–40. City University of Hong Kong Press.Google Scholar
Yang, C. (2004) Universal grammar, statistics or both? Trends in Cognitive Science 8:451–56.Google Scholar
Zuberbühler, K. (2005) Linguistic prerequisites in the primate lineage. In: Language origins: Perspectives on evolution, ed. Tallerman, M., pp. 262–82. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar