Abstract
Many researchers have advocated an abrupt, saltationist view of language evolution, including, but not limited to: Berwick (1998), Bickerton (1990, 1998), Lightfoot (1991), Chomsky (2002, 2005), Berwick and Chomsky (2011, 2016), Piattelli-Palmarini (2010), Piattelli-Palmarini and Uriagereka (2004, 2011), Moro (2008), Hornstein (2009), Miyagawa (2017), Miyagawa et al. (2014), Di Sciullo (2013). In this chapter I consider in some detail two such approaches to language evolution: Berwick and Chomsky’s all or nothing saltationist approach is discussed in Sect. 2.2, and Miyagawa’s approach, which allows some continuity, is discussed in Sect. 2.3. For each approach, I consider how it addresses the Five Problems identified in Chap. 1.
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Notes
- 1.
Even though Bickerton proclaims a sudden emergence of language, his proposal of proto-language seems to be more amenable to a gradualist approach, as discussed in Chap. 3.
- 2.
In fact, saltationist views sometimes flirt with the idea that not just syntax/grammar, but language in its entirety, including words, arose as one single event. While most claims are vague in this respect, Piattelli-Palmarini (2010, 160) states that it is “illusory” to think that words can exist outside of full-blown syntax, or that any proto-language (a là Bickerton 1990, 1995) can be reconstructed in which words are used, but not syntax. See also Shigeru Miyagawa’s views discussed in Sect. 2.3.
- 3.
The novel mutation scenario would be preferred by Berwick and Chomsky (2016) because they insist on a great and sharp discontinuity with other species when it comes to the capacity for language. If the initial selection targeted mutations that were already available in some individuals of other species, then the divide between “us and them” cannot be as sharp as Berwick and Chomsky envision. But they do acknowledge on p. 52 that in principle selection can make use of variation already present in a population. Miyagawa’s (2017) approach, as discussed in the following section, does not seem to advocate such a sharp disconnect with the other species.
- 4.
It is important to keep in mind that Merge is just an operation that combines two words/phrases into a single unit or constituent. No matter how learned this term may seem when used in the literature on language evolution, it is really just that: an operation that e.g. combines the article the and the noun summer into the determiner phrase the summer.
- 5.
Another potential problem for selection in relation to language is raised by Christiansen and Chater (2008), which has to do with the constant and rapid language change. According to the authors, the linguistic environment over which selectional pressures operate thus presents a “moving target” for natural selection. However, in a commentary to this article, Fitch (2008) counters that the same issue of a rapidly changing environment also arises with uncontroversially adaptive biological processes, and that it cannot be considered as an obstacle to selection.
- 6.
- 7.
I believe that the term “expressive” is misleading here. It is helpful for Miyagawa to use it, as the term relates better to the birdsong than would the terms functional or grammatical, typically used by linguists. But then, on the other hand, the term expressive does not really relate well to the grammatical component of human language. The lack of a good term that can bring together both birdsong melodies, and the abstract grammatical component of human language, may be just another indication that the two do not have much in common.
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Progovac, L. (2019). Sudden (Saltationist) Approaches to Language Evolution. In: A Critical Introduction to Language Evolution. SpringerBriefs in Linguistics(). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03235-7_2
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