Rudolf Botha
2011
Constraining the arbirariness of exaptationist accounts of the evolution of language
Lingua 121(9):1552--1563, 2011
Abstract This article shows that both earlier and more recent accounts on which certain features of language arose by exaptation are arbitrary in not including pertinent evidence for the claims expressed by them. By way of illustration, it analyzes in some depth Noam ...
The Oxford Handbook of Language Evolution, 2011
This article focuses on the inference that the Middle Stone Age (MSA) inhabitants of Blombos Cave had fully syntactic language. The Blombos inference is seen to use three consecutive inferential steps as, from data about a number of material objects, it draws a conclusion about a ...MORE ⇓
This article focuses on the inference that the Middle Stone Age (MSA) inhabitants of Blombos Cave had fully syntactic language. The Blombos inference is seen to use three consecutive inferential steps as, from data about a number of material objects, it draws a conclusion about a facet of language evolution. One of the steps inferred that the shells were beads worn by the humans who inhabited Blombos Cave some 75 kya. It was inferred from data and/or assumptions about properties of a number of MSA tick shells. The data and/or assumptions are about properties of forty-one shells of the scavenging gastropod Nassarius kraussianus. These properties of the shells include their age, their man-made perforations, their flattened facets, and their distribution in groups in the cave. Another step inferred that the humans were engaged in symbolic behavior, which was from data and/or assumptions about the beads. Another step inferred that the humans had fully syntactic language. It was inferred from data and/or assumptions about the symbolic behavior. The symbols-to-syntax inference needs to meet a number of fundamental conditions, including the one that is the warrantedness condition, which states that the inferential step leading to some conclusion about language evolution needs to be suitably warranted or licensed.
2009
Introduction: Rewards and Challenges of Multi-perspectival Work on the Evolution of Language and Speech
The Prehistory Of Language 1.0, 2009
On musilanguage/Hmmmmm as an evolutionary precursor to language
Language \& Communication 29(1):61--76, 2009
It has been contended that modern language and music are similar in ways from which inferences can be drawn about their origin and evolution. Specifically, it has been inferred that language and music had a common precursor–referred to by Steven Brown as “ ...
2008
Unravelling the evolution of language with help from the giant water bug, natterjack toad and horned lizard
Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on the Evolution of Language, pages 42-50, 2008
Prehistoric shell beads as a window on language evolution
Language \& Communication 28(3):197--212, 2008
Humans had “fully syntactical language” as early as 75,000 years ago. This has been inferred from properties of a number of Middle Stone Age (MSA) shell beads excavated at Blombos Cave in South Africa. Addressing the question “Can one learn something about ...
2007
On homesign systems as a potential window on language evolution
Language \& Communication 27(1):41--53, 2007
It may be possible to infer some features of language evolution from properties of homesigns–the rudimentary gestural systems created by certain deaf children. On this belief, homesigns offer a potential window on language evolution. The present article makes an assessment ...
2002
Language and Communication 22(2):131-158, 2002
On various modern accounts, human language or some of its features evolved like the vertebrate eye by natural selection. The present article offers a critical appraisal of the way in which this idea is articulated in Pinker and Bloom's (1990) selectionist account of language ...MORE ⇓
On various modern accounts, human language or some of its features evolved like the vertebrate eye by natural selection. The present article offers a critical appraisal of the way in which this idea is articulated in Pinker and Bloom's (1990) selectionist account of language evolution--the most sophisticated account of its kind. It is argued that this account is less than insightful since it fails to draw some of the conceptual distinctions that are central to a certain requirement for such selectionist accounts. The requirement states that language can be accorded the evolutionary status of an adaptation by natural selection if it exhibits complex adaptive design for some evolutionary significant function.