Language evolution as cultural evolution: how language is shaped by the brain.
This paper reviews arguments against the evolutionary plausibility of a traditional genetically specified universal grammar. We argue that no such universal grammar could have evolved, either by a process of natural selection or by other evolutionary mechanisms. Instead, we propose that the close fit between languages and language learners, which make language acquisition possible, arises not because humans possess a specialized biological adaptation for language, but because language has been shaped to fit the brain, a process of cultural evolution. On this account, many aspects of the structure of human languages may be explained as cultural adaptations to the human brain. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website.
Cognitive, Perceptual and Brain Sciences, Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, University College London, London, WC1E 6BT, UK.
Nick
N
Chater
Department of Psychology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA.|Santa Fe Institute, 1399 Hyde Park Road, Santa Fe, NM 87501, USA.
Morten H
MH
Christiansen