Cover not available
Part of
Essays on Linguistic Realism
Edited by Christina Behme and Martin Neef
[Studies in Language Companion Series 196] 2018
► pp. 61–78

Chapter 4
The relevance of realism for language evolution theorizing

| Kwantlen Polytechnic University

It may appear counterintuitive to suggest a connection between language evolution and linguistic realism. Only biological objects evolve but linguistic realism holds that natural languages are abstract objects. However, given the fact that currently no approach to language evolution can account satisfactorily for all aspects of language, I suggest that reconsidering the ontological status of natural languages might lead to novel approaches to language evolution puzzles. Most contemporary work on language evolution assumes without argument that natural languages are either biological entities or produced by biological organs (human brains), and focuses on brain evolution, language acquisition, and communication systems of other primates. Yet, so far such approaches have been unable to account for some aspects of grammar. Furthermore, to date little is known about the bio-physiological implementation of natural languages. I suggest that the debate could profit from paying closer attention to the ontological status of language and the exact relationship between language and biology. Finally, I discuss the kinds of evidence used in linguistic research and demonstrate that, contra to widespread belief, the linguistic Platonist is neither relying on inferior evidence nor ruling out evidence that is clearly relevant to linguistic research.

Keywords: realism, language evolution, innatism, animal communication, linguistic evidence
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Some highlights from current language evolution research
    • 2.1Cognitive capacities in non-human animals
    • 2.2How close to language is animal communication?
  • 3.Ontological considerations
  • 4.Does linguistic evidence rule out linguistic realism?
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 26 July 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.196.04beh
References
Arbib, Michael A.
2005 From monkey-like action recognition to human language: An evolutionary framework for neurolinguistics. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 28: 105–167. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Behme, Christina
2015 Is the ontology of biolinguistics coherent? Language Sciences 47: 32–42. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Berwick, Robert C., Pietroski, Paul, Yankama, Beracah & Chomsky, Noam
2011 Poverty of the stimulus revisited. Cognitive Science 35: 1207–1242. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bickerton, Derek
1981 Roots of Language. Ann Arbor MI: Karoma.Google Scholar
Bugnyar, Thomas & Heinrich, Bernd
2005 Food-storing ravens differentiate between knowledgeable and ignorant competitors. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series B 272: 1641–1646. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Burling, Robbins
1986 The selective advantage of complex language. Ethology and Sociobiology 7: 1–16. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chen, Iani, Jansen, Naomi & ten Cate, Carel
2014 Zebra finches can learn to recognize affixations. In The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the 10th International Conference EVOLANG 10, Erica C. Cartmill, Seán Roberts, Heid Lyn & Hannah Cornish (eds), 411–412. Singapore: World Scientific. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chomsky, Noam
1975 Reflections on Language. London: Temple Smith.Google Scholar
1977 Essays on Form and Interpretation. New York NY: North Holland.Google Scholar
1980 The linguistic approach. In Language and Learning, Massimo Piatelli-Palmerini (ed.), 107–130. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
1986 Knowledge of Language. New York NY: Praeger.Google Scholar
2009 Opening remarks. In Of Minds and Language: A Dialogue with Noam Chomsky in the Basque Country, Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini, Juan Uriagereka & Pello Salaburu (eds), 13–43. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
2012 The Science of Language. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Clark, Eve
2009 First Language Acquisition. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Collins, Chris & Postal, Paul M.
2012 Imposters. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Collins, John
2009 A question of irresponsibility: Postal, and Chomsky, Gödel. Biolinguistics 3: 99–103.Google Scholar
Corballis, Michael C.
2007 Recursion, language, and starlings. Cognitive Science 31: 697–704. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Curme, George
1931 Syntax. Boston MA: D. C. Heath.Google Scholar
Deacon, Terrence
1997 The Symbolic Species. New York NY: W.W. Norton.Google Scholar
2009 Relaxed selection and the role of epigenesis in the evolution of language. In Oxford Handbook of Development Behavioral Neuroscience, Mark S. Blumberg, John H. Freeman & Scott R. Robinson (eds), 730–752. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Emery, Nathan J. & Clayton, Nicola S.
2001 Effects of experience and social context on prospective caching strategies by scrub jays. Nature 414: 443–446. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Evans, Nicholas
2005 Australian languages reconsidered: A review of Dixon (2002). Oceanic Linguistics 44(1): 242–286. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Evans, Nicholas & Levinson, Stephen
2009 The myth of language universals: Language diversity and its importance for cognitive science. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 32: 429–448. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Evans, Vyvyan
2014 The Language Myth: Why Language is not an Instinct. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Everett, Daniel
2012 Language: The Cultural Tool. New York NY: Pantheon.Google Scholar
Fitch, W. Tecumseh
2010 The Evolution of Language. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fitch, W. Tecumseh & Friederici, Angelika D.
2012 Artificial grammar learning meets formal language theory: An overview. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences 367: 1933–1955. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fodor, Jerrold
1985 Some notes on what linguistics is about. In The Philosophy of Linguistics, Jerrold J. Katz (ed.), 146–160. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Gentner, Timothy Q., Fenn, Kimberly M., Margoliash, Daniel & Nusbaum, Howard C.
2006 Recursive syntactic pattern learning by songbirds. Nature 440: 1204–1207. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Genty, Emilie, Clay, Zanna, Hobaiter, Catherine & Zuberbuehler, Klaus
2013 Multi-modal use of a socially directed call in bonobos. PLoS ONE 9(1): e84738.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Heim, Irene
2008 Features on bound pronouns. In Phi-theory: Phi-features across modules and interfaces, Daniel Harbour, David Adger & Susana Bejar (eds), 35–56. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Hurford, James
1989 Biological evolution of the Saussurean sign as a component of the language acquisition device. Lingua 77(2): 187–222. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2007 The Origins of Meaning: Language in the Light of Evolution. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
2011 The Origins of Grammar: Language in the Light of Evolution. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
2014 The Origins of Language: A Slim Guide. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Iten, Corinne, Stainton, Robert & Wearing, Catherine
2007 On restricting the evidence base for linguistics. In Philosophy of Psychology, Paul Thagard, Dov Gabbay & John Woods (eds), 219–246. Amsterdam: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Jackendoff, Ray & Pinker, Steven
2005 The nature of the language faculty and its implications for evolution of language (reply to Fitch, Hauser, and Chomsky). Cognition 97: 211–225. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Janik, Vincent M.
2014 Cetacean vocal learning and communication. Current Opinion in Neurobiology 28: 60–65. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kanwal, Jagmeet S., Matsumura, Sumiko, Ohlemiller, Kevin & Suga, Nobuo
1994 Analysis of acoustic elements and syntax in communication sounds emitted by mustached bats. Journal of the Acoustic Society of America 96: 1229–1254. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Katz, Jerrold J.
1981 Language and Other Abstract Objects. Totowa NJ: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
1996 The unfinished Chomskyan revolution. Mind and Language 11: 270–294. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1998 Realistic Rationalism. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Katz, Jerrold J. & Postal, Paul M.
1991 Realism vs. conceptualism in linguistics. Linguistics and Philosophy 14: 515–554. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lieberman, Philip
2013 The Unpredictable Species. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ludlow, Peter
2011 The Philosophy of Generative Linguistics. Oxford: OUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
MacWhinney, Brian
2004 A multiple process solution to the logical problem of language acquisition. Journal of Child Language 31: 883–914. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
McGilvray, James
2006 On the innateness of language. In Contemporary Debates in Cognitive Science, Robert Stainton (ed.), 97–112. Malden MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
2009 Introduction to the third edition. In Cartesian Linguistics. A Chapter in the History of Rationalist Thought, Noam Chomsky, 1–52. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2012 Appendix VI: Semantics and how to do it. In The Science of Language: Interviews with James McGilvray, Noam Chomsky, 206–231. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
Pepperberg, Irene M.
2008 Alex & Me. New York NY: Harper Luxe.Google Scholar
Pinker, Steven
1994 The Language Instinct. New York NY: William Morrow.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pinker, Steven & Bloom, Paul
1990 Natural language and natural selection. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 13: 707–784. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Postal, Paul M.
2009 The incoherence of Chomsky’s ‘biolinguistic’ ontology. Biolinguistics 3: 104–123.Google Scholar
Quine, Willard van Orman
1987 Quiddities. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Reali, Florencia K. & Christiansen, Morten H.
2005 Uncovering the richness of the stimulus: Structural dependence and indirect statistical evidence. Cognitive Science 29: 1007–1028. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Savage-Rumbaugh, Sue & Lewin, Roger
1994 Kanzi: The Ape at the Brink of the Human Mind. New York NY: WileyGoogle Scholar
Schel, Anne Marijke, Townsend, Simon W., Machanda, Zarin, Zuberbühler, Klaus & Slocombe, Katie E.
2013 Chimpanzee alarm call production meets key criteria for intentionality. PLoS ONE 8(10): e76674. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schlenker Philippe, Chemla, Emmanuel, Arnold, Kate, Lemasson, Alban, Ouattara, Karim, Keenan, Sumir, Stephan, Claudia, Ryder, Robin & Zuberbühler, Klaus
2014 Monkey semantics: Two ‘dialects’ of Campbell’s monkey alarm calls. Linguistics and Philosophy 37: 439–501. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schnelle, Helmut
2010 Language in the Brain. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Searle, John
1973 Chomsky’s revolution in linguistics. In On Noam Chomsky: Critical essays, Gilman Harman (ed.), 2–33. New York NY: Anchor Books.Google Scholar
Seyfarth, Robert M., Cheney, Dorothy L. & Marler, Peter
1980 Monkey responses to three different alarm calls: Evidence of predator classification and semantic communication. Science 210(4471): 801–803. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Smith, Neil
1999 Chomsky. Ideas and Ideals. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Stainton, Robert
2006 Words and Thought. Oxford: Clarendon Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Suzuki, Ryuji, Buck, John R. & Tyack, Peter L.
2006 Information entropy of humpback whale songs. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 119(3): 1849–1866. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Taylor, Alexander H., Miller, Rachael & Gray, Russel D.
2012 New Caledonian crows reason about hidden causal agents. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science U S A 109(40): 16389–16391. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
ten Cate, Carel
2014 On the phonetic and syntactic abilities of birds. Current Opinion in Neurobiology 28: 157–164. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tomasello, Michael
2003 Constructing a Language: A Usage-Based Theory of Language Acquisition. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
2009 Origins of Communication. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Watumull, Jeffrey
2014 Biolinguistics and platonism: Contradictory or consilient? Biolinguistics 7: 301–315.Google Scholar