The evolutionary emergence of language : evidence and inference
Rudolf P. Botha (Editor), Martin Everaert (Editor)
Leading primatologists, cognitive scientists, anthropologists, and linguists consider how language evolution can be understood by means of inference from the study of linked or analogous phenomena in language, animal behaviour, genetics, neurology, culture, and biology
Print Book, English, 2013
First edition View all formats and editions
Oxford University Press, Oxford, United Kingdom, 2013
xviii, 334 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.
9780199654840, 9780199654857, 0199654840, 0199654859
828055639
1. Introduction: evidence and inference in the study of language evolution ; 2. What is special about the human language faculty and how did it get that way? ; 3. Language has evolved to depend on multiple-cue integration ; 4. Homesign as a way-station between co-speech gesture and sign language: the evolution of segmenting and sequencing ; 5. Kin selection, pedagogy and linguistic complexity: whence protolanguage? ; 6. Neanderthal linguistic abilities: an alternative view ; 7. The archaeology of number concept and its implications for the evolution of language ; 8. The evolution of semantics: sharing conceptual domains ; 9. Speech-gesture links and the ontogeny and phylogeny of gestural communication ; 10. Exploring the gaps between primate calls and human language ; 11. Talking about apes, birds, bees, and other living creatures: language evolution in light of comparative animal behaviour ; 12. FoxP2 and deep homology in the evolution of birdsong and human language ; 13. Genetics, evolution, and the innateness of language ; References ; Indexes