Language Evolution and Syntactic Theory

Evolution has not typically been recognised by linguists as a constraining factor when developing linguistic theories. This book demonstrates that our theories of language must reflect the fact that language has evolved. It critiques a currently dominant framework in the field of linguistics - the Minimalist Program - by showing how it fails to take evolution into account. It approaches the question of the evolution of human language in a novel way by applying findings from the field of evolutionary biology to language. Key properties associated with typically evolving systems are identified in language, and the shortcomings of the Minimalist Program in its outright rejection of these features are exposed. The book will be of interest to individual researchers and advanced students in linguistics, psychology, biology, anthropology and cognitive science.

List of figures	p. ix
List of tables	p. x
Preface	p. xi
List of abbreviations	p. xiii
Constraining our theory of language	p. 1
Language and evolution	p. 1
Studies in syntactic theory	p. 3
Studies in evolution	p. 7
Studies in language evolution	p. 10
Constraining the theory of language	p. 16
A history of generative grammar	p. 17
Minimalism - a program for syntactic theorising	p. 21
Syntactic theory in the light of evolution: the book	p. 36
Language as a perfect system	p. 39
Introduction	p. 39
The perfection of language	p. 39
Perfection = adaptation?	p. 49
Simply a matter of terminology?	p. 53
Perfection in nature	p. 60
Conclusions	p. 68
Language as an evolvable system	p. 70
Introduction	p. 70
The simplicity of the minimalist language faculty	p. 70
The complexity of the non-minimalist language faculty	p. 72
Measuring complexity	p. 77
The direction of evolution	p. 81
Minimalist methodology	p. 87
Minimalism and saltationism	p. 91
Evolvability	p. 96
Conclusions	p. 110
Language as a recursive system	p. 112
Introduction	p. 112
What is recursion?	p. 113
What's special about language?	p. 129
The uniqueness of recursion	p. 134
Language without recursion	p. 150
Conclusions	p. 158
Language as a minimal system	p. 160
Introduction	p. 160
Degeneracy and imperfection in the system	p. 161
'Extra' operations and competing motivations	p. 163
What is meant by 'perfection' anyhow?	p. 166
An imperfection in the mapping process	p. 170
Stipulations without independent motivation	p. 171
Shifting the burden of explanation	p. 175
Phenomena left unexplained	p. 178
Conclusions	p. 183
Towards an evolvable theory of syntax	p. 185
Evolution as a constraint on theories of language	p. 185
Reconciling minimalism and evolution	p. 186
Evolutionary plausible theories of language	p. 188
Final remarks	p. 194
Bibliography	p. 195
Index	p. 211
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Language Evolution and Syntactic Theory

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