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SPRINGER BRIEFS IN LINGUISTICS
EXPERT BRIEFS

Ljiljana Progovac

A Critical Introduction
to Language Evolution
Current Controversies
and Future Prospects
SpringerBriefs in Linguistics

Expert Briefs

Series editor
Helen Aristar-Dry, Dripping Springs, TX, USA
Springer Expert Briefs in Linguistics are invited topical monographs written by
experienced linguists, designed to bring knowledgeable readers up to date on
current linguistic subfields, approaches, or research questions. They are designed to
be succinct overviews, restricted in length but unrestricted as to theory or branch of
linguistics. Because of their brevity and expert authorship, they are well-suited to
serve as unit texts in graduate and undergraduate seminars, as well as to acquaint
scholars with recent developments outside their own research areas.

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/15630

Ljiljana Progovac

A Critical Introduction
to Language Evolution
Current Controversies and Future Prospects

123
Ljiljana Progovac
Linguistics Department
Wayne State University
Detroit, MI, USA

ISSN 2197-0009 ISSN 2197-0017 (electronic)

SpringerBriefs in Linguistics
ISSN 2511-0594 ISSN 2511-0616 (electronic)
Expert Briefs
ISBN 978-3-030-03234-0 ISBN 978-3-030-03235-7 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03235-7

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018960742

© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part
of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations,
recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission
or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar
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The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from
the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this
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This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
To Stefan and Ana
Acknowledgements

My deepest intellectual debt for numerous stimulating discussions and exchanges

pertaining to the ideas in this monograph is to Martha Ratliff. I also owe a great deal
for inspiration and for feedback, to David Gil, Ray Jackendoff, Dan Dediu, Enoch
Aboh, Dorit Bar-On, Barbara Citko, Brady Clark, and Salikoko Mufwene. For their
careful reading of this manuscript, I am indebted to Martha Ratliff, Natasha
Rakhlin, and Helen Aristar-Dry. I am also thankful to the two anonymous
reviewers, as well as to the editors, Helen Aristar-Dry, Jolanda Voogd, and Helen
van der Stelt, for providing invaluable guidance and direction. All errors are mine.

vii
Contents

1 Introduction to Divergent Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

1.1 Why Study Language Evolution ... or Not? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 How Ancient Is Language, and Did Neanderthals Have It? . . . . . . 3
1.3 Sudden (Saltationist) or Gradual Emergence? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.4 The Core Questions to Answer: The Five Problems . . . . . . . . . . . 5
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2 Sudden (Saltationist) Approaches to Language Evolution . . . . . . . . . 15
2.1 A Sampling of Saltationist Approaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.2 All or Nothing Saltationist Scenario (Berwick and Chomsky) . . . . 15
2.3 Saltationism with Some Continuity (Miyagawa) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
3 Gradualist Approaches to Language Evolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 31
3.1 A Sampling of Gradualist Approaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 31
3.2 Using the Linguistic Framework of Grammaticalization:
Reconstruction of Earliest Vocabularies (Heine and Kuteva) . . . .. 32
3.3 Using the Linguistic Framework of Minimalism: Reconstruction
of Earliest Grammars (Progovac) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 35
3.4 In Defense of “Living Fossils” (Jackendoff; Bickerton; Givón;
Progovac) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
3.5 Cultural Change or Genetic Evolution? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
3.5.1 Nurture Versus Nature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
3.5.2 Cultural Evolution and Computer Simulation Studies . . . . . 56
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
4 Putting It All Together: The Language-Brain-Genes Loop . . . ..... 67
4.1 From Language to the Brain to the Genes, and Back . . . . . ..... 67
4.2 Specific Sexual Selection Scenario: Language and Genes . . ..... 68
4.3 Genetic Discoveries and Experiments: Genes and the Brain
(via Language) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..... 74

ix
x Contents

4.4 Neuroscientific Findings and Experiments: Language

and the Brain (via Genes) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
4.5 What About Neanderthals and Other Species? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
4.6 Conclusions and Future Prospects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
Synopsis

My first goal in this monograph is to provide an introduction to the current views

and controversies regarding language evolution. I focus on central points of con-
troversy, including (i) how ancient language is, and whether or not Neanderthals
and other species had some form of language; (ii) whether language evolved
gradually and incrementally, through stages, or suddenly, in one leap, in all its
complexity; and (iii) whether or not language evolution involves genetic changes
and natural selection, or just cultural evolution. All these (and other) issues are
being hotly debated today by scholars, who offer a spectrum of different approa-
ches. I look at several key proposals and evaluate them with respect to how suc-
cessfully they address the following challenges regularly encountered in language
evolution studies (henceforth, the Five Problems): (i) identification of the initial
stage(s) of language (the Decomposition Problem); (ii) the genetic bases for lan-
guage (the Selection Problem); (iii) the language-brain-genes linkage (the Loop
Problem); (iv) compatibility with the parameters of language variation and change
(the Variation Problem); and (v) grounding in linguistic theory and analysis (the
Theoretical Grounding Problem).
The second goal is to find connections and cross-fertilization potential among
some of the existing approaches, which at first sight may seem incompatible. To
illustrate how this can work, I consider how reconstructions based on different
linguistic frameworks can reinforce each other, leading to more specific proposals,
and consequently proposals that can better address the Five Problems. Different
frameworks often illuminate language from different angles, and considering that
language involves several interlocking components, there is a virtue in trying to
bring at least some of these different approaches together for mutual reinforcement.
The third goal is to emphasize the need for researchers to not only provide solid,
linguistically informed hypotheses, but also to subject them to empirical testing,
drawing on a variety of methods and findings that are currently available in relevant
fields. The discussion includes some examples of how evolutionary hypotheses can
be tested, including through fMRI experiments; statistical correlations between
linguistic variation and genetic variation; and computer simulations. Given that the
purpose of the scientific method is to attempt to exclude (falsify) as many of the

xi
xii Synopsis

available hypotheses as possible, i.e. to narrow down the range of possibilities, the
proposals need to be designed in such a way that they are testable and falsifiable.
While the question of how language evolved may be one of the hardest problems
for science to solve, there is also at the same time a wealth of accumulated
knowledge in the relevant fields of study, as well as new and sophisticated tools for
probing this fascinating question.
Series Editor’s Introduction

It is a distinct pleasure to introduce A Critical Introduction to Language Evolution:

Current Controversies and Future Prospects, by Dr. Ljiljana Progovac. This is the
first book in a new Springer monograph series entitled Expert Briefs in Linguistics.
The books in this series will address an area of current interest in the discipline in a
way that offers both the concision and the authority required by linguists who want
to remain up to date with all aspects of a rapidly expanding field. Approximately
one hundred pages in length and written by acknowledged experts, these “briefs”
are intended to serve as compact overviews of a new topic for those who already
have substantial knowledge in a related area. Thus they are not “introductions” in
the traditional sense, although they may certainly be used as such in advanced
classes, as they are intended to leave the reader with an understanding of the major
questions in the subfield, the different approaches to these and any controversies
surrounding them, and the ability to discover additional information.
A Critical Introduction to Language Evolution is the ideal work to inaugurate
such a series, in that Progovac’s book introduces foundational goals, concepts, and
definitions through focusing on five central questions which motivate the contro-
versies surrounding language evolution. Synopsizing various answers to these
questions, Progovac nevertheless pursues a single thread of argumentation
throughout, so that the reader sees linguistic evidence and linguistic argumentation
deployed, rather than merely described. At the same time, Progovac introduces
counter-theories objectively and guides readers toward resources relevant to
reaching their own conclusions. A linguist, anthropologist, or evolutionary biologist
will finish the book feeling authoritatively “briefed” on why evolutionary linguis-
tics has become such a hot topic in the field.
Dr. Ljiljana Progovac is eminently qualified to write such a brief. She is a
Professor of Linguistics at Wayne State University, where her book, Evolutionary
Syntax, published by Oxford University Press (2015), won the Board of Governors
Faculty Recognition Award. During 2014–2016, supported by The Humanities
Center Marilyn Williamson Endowed Distinguished Faculty Fellowship, she pur-
sued the experimental fMRI project “In Search of Protosyntax in the Brain,” which
involved testing specific hypotheses about the evolution of syntax by performing

xiii
xiv Series Editor’s Introduction

neuroimaging (fMRI) experiments with English and Serbian native speakers. Some
of the results of the experimental fMRI project were published in the journal
Frontiers in Psychology (Progovac et al. 2018). In 2013, she won the Keal Faculty
Fellowship for preparation of the book manuscript, A Program for Evolutionary
Syntax. And in 2015, she taught evolutionary syntax at the University of Chicago,
as part of the Linguistic Society of America (LSA) Linguistic Institute. We are
fortunate indeed that Dr. Progovac will inaugurate the Springer Expert Briefs in
Linguistics series with A Critical Introduction to Language Evolution.

Helen Aristar-Dry
Chapter 1
Introduction to Divergent Views

Keywords Gradualist vs. saltationist approaches · Language evolution

Natural selection · The antiquity of language

1.1 Why Study Language Evolution … or Not?

In the last quarter century we have seen an explosion of interest in the field of lan-
guage evolution, and the pace is only picking up. This is deservedly so, as without
understanding how human language evolved, we can hardly understand what lan-
guage really is, or what defines humanhood. “Like other biological phenomena,
language cannot be fully understood without reference to its evolution, whether
proven or hypothesized” (Givón 2002, p. 39). The time is now ripe to pursue specific
hypotheses about language evolution, given some spectacular advances in genetics,
solid accumulation of knowledge and theoretical insight in linguistics, as well as
the availability of big data and new methodologies. Still, there are some in very
influential circles who advocate rejecting this field of study.
It is well-known to those who engage in the study of language evolution that such
studies were once officially banned in France in 1866 (Paris Linguistic Society),
and unofficially banned or discouraged elsewhere. But it is perhaps less obvious that
there are calls even today to reject research on language evolution, especially any
proposals that invoke natural selection. These are often implicit, as will be pointed
out in Chap. 2, but there are also explicit calls made in Lewontin (1998) and revived in
e.g. Berwick and Chomsky (2016) and previous work. Here is a quote from Boeckx
(2016, p. 476), echoing Berwick & Chomsky’s view: “It is very difficult to make
a compelling case in favor of natural selection having targeted a particular trait. Of
course, it is easy to spin a narrative that implicates natural selection, but biologists
like Richard Lewontin, who has spent his life constructing compelling arguments
(and deconstructing just-so stories), have repeatedly pointed out that it takes serious

© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 1

L. Progovac, A Critical Introduction to Language Evolution, Expert Briefs,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03235-7_1
2 1 Introduction to Divergent Views

effort to catch natural selection in flagranti, so much so that … in the case of human
cognition, one should give up trying. It’s just too difficult, with the little we can get
from the fossil record.”1
If appealing to authority is going to be one’s main argument against pursuing
a Darwinian scenario for language evolution, then, as a counterargument, one can
offer the opinions of other scholars, who also spent decades or lifetimes working on
these topics, but who have reached very different conclusions from those advocated
by Lewontin or Berwick or Chomsky, as reflected in the work by Pinker and Bloom
(1990), Jackendoff (1999, 2002), Gil (2005), Hurford (2007), Dediu and Levinson
(2013), Fitch (2017a, b), and Fisher (2017), among others. Darwin himself (e.g. 1874,
p. 634) thought that language evolved through natural selection: “a great stride in the
development of intellect will have followed, as soon as the half-art and half-instinct
of language came into use; for the continued use of language will have reacted on
the brain and produced an inherited effect; and this again will have reacted on the
improvement of language. … The largeness of the brain in man, relatively to his
body, compared with the lower animals, may be attributed in chief part to the early
use of some simple form of language.”
As recently stated in Fitch (2017a, p. 1), despite some remarkable advances, “the
field remains plagued by an unfortunate but persistent belief that scientific work on the
topic of language evolution is inherently and irredeemably speculative. This prejudice
is unjustified: many other branches of science (e.g. geology or cosmology) study
complex historical processes, buried in the past, but this does not stop researchers
from developing, debating, and testing hypotheses and ultimately reaching scientific
agreement on the basis of converging evidence…” As Fitch (2017b, p. 6) notes, the
problem is aggravated by the tendency for the researchers in this field to “stoop to
disparage alternative hypotheses with derogatory nicknames (e.g. the ‘bow-wow’ or
‘ding-dong’ theories), in the tradition initiated by Max Müller’s 19th century attacks
on Darwin (Müller 1861).”
In other words, this debate should not hinge on invoking authority, but crucially
on the strength of the arguments, on hypotheses, and on testing. As with any other
difficult puzzle to solve, a variety of views and hypotheses will need to be considered
and tested. It is the very essence of science to consider and try to falsify a variety of
available hypotheses, with the purpose of excluding some, and narrowing down the
range of possibilities. Science does not make progress by letting certain views run
unopposed. There is no good reason to exclude certain hypotheses a priori, especially
not the most obvious ones to explore, such as natural selection.

1 Curiously, the scholars who advocate rejecting this topic have themselves published books and/or
articles on language evolution. This is certainly the case with Berwick, Chomsky, and Boeckx.
1.2 How Ancient Is Language? 3

1.2 How Ancient Is Language, and Did Neanderthals Have

It?

The question of how ancient language is inevitably links to the question of whether or
not Neanderthals (or other species) had language. Those who propose that language
sprung into existence suddenly and recently, about 50,000 years ago (e.g. Chomsky
2005), typically claim that language characterizes only humans, and that there is com-
plete discontinuity and disconnect between human language capacity and anything
found in other species.2 On the other hand, those who propose a deeper timeline for
the evolution of language maintain that Neanderthals also had some form of language.
Based on the comparative evidence involving the descendants of H. heidelbergensis
(H. sapiens, Denisovans, and Neanderthals), Dediu and Levinson (2013) propose that
at least H. heidelbergensis had some form of language. Their estimate is thus that
language dates back to at least H. heidelbergensis, to some 400,000–500,000 years
ago. Dediu & Levinson reached their conclusions after reviewing findings in genet-
ics, skeletal morphology, the morphology of the vocal tract, infant maturation, brain
size, and cultural artifacts, proposing that Neanderthals and Denisovans “had the
basic genetic underpinning for recognizably modern language and speech, but it is
possible that modern humans may outstrip them in some parameters (perhaps range
of speech sounds or rapidity of speech, complexity of syntax, size of vocabularies,
or the like)” (p. 5). I return to the question of what type of grammar/language they
may have commanded in Chap. 4 (see also Progovac 2016).
At that time, Berwick et al. (2013) ridiculed this view in their response titled “Just
so stories take center stage.” But today the pendulum seems to be swinging in the
direction of the belief that Neanderthals commanded some kind of language. This
shift comes amidst many recent findings in both archeology and genetics, which point
to a deeper timeline for the emergence of language. Even Chomsky and some of his
co-authors have (quietly) softened their stance somewhat (Berwick and Chomsky
2016). For example, while they do not acknowledge this, they pushed their estimated
date of the emergence of language to up to 200,000 years ago (e.g. p. 157), from the
previous “just a bit over 50,000 years ago” (Chomsky 2005). In this respect, they
met almost half way Dediu and Levinson’s (2013) estimate. Moreover, Berwick and
Chomsky (2016) no longer claim that Neanderthals did not have language. Instead,
they now say that it is the “$64,000 question whether Neanderthals had language”
(p. 50).
When it comes to genetic considerations, the initial report on the FOXP2 muta-
tion as human specific (Enard et al. 2002) was used as an argument for saltationist
views of language evolution (Chap. 2), i.e. for the claims that language, or at least
syntax, emerged suddenly and recently in humans, in all its complexity, as one single

2 Of note is that subscribing to a saltationist (sudden) view does not necessarily force one to the
recent scenario view; it is logically possible that language emerged suddenly, in its full complexity,
in some other species, such as H. heidelbergensis, our common ancestor with Neanderthals, but
as far as I am aware, this idea has not been entertained by saltationists. They insist on the abrupt
discontinuity between humans and any other species.
4 1 Introduction to Divergent Views

mutation, such as FOXP2 mutation (see e.g. Chomsky 2010; Berwick and Chomsky
2011). However, the more recent findings report that Neanderthals also had a derived
variant of FOXP2 (Krause et al. 2007), certainly leaving room for at least debate and
dialog. This prompted the saltationists Piattelli-Palmarini and Uriagereka to title their
(2011) paper “A geneticist’s dream, [but] a linguist’s nightmare.” But this of course
only holds for those linguists who subscribe to the saltationist, single-mutation view
of language evolution. On the other hand, this finding is good news for those who
advocate a gradualist, many-genes-with-small-effects approach, whether linguists or
not. In Chap. 4 I return to some specific hypotheses regarding the possible grammar
of Neanderthals, as well as to the significance of FOXP2 mutation for the evolution
of the brain.

1.3 Sudden (Saltationist) or Gradual Emergence?

It was Pinker and Bloom’s (1990) stimulating article titled “Natural language and
natural selection” that slowly but surely unleashed a host of papers and books on
language evolution, as it clearly highlighted the nature and the extent of the con-
troversies. Based on Darwin’s work, Pinker and Bloom argue that the only way to
evolve a truly complex design that serves a particular purpose is through a sequence
of mutations/changes with small effects, and through intermediate stages, useful
enough to trigger natural selection (see also Dediu and Ladd 2007). They point out
that it is impossible to make sense of the structure of the eye without acknowledging
that it evolved for the purpose of seeing; evolution is the only physical process that
can create an eye because it is the only physical process in which the criterion of
being good at seeing can play a causal role. They apply the same reasoning to lan-
guage: evolution can create a system as complex as human language because it is the
physical process in which the criterion of being good at language(/communication)
can play a causal role.
In sharp contrast, Chomsky and Berwick have argued repeatedly, both in their
joint and individual contributions, that it is inconceivable for there to exist, or to
have ever existed, a human language which does not come complete with all the
complexities of modern syntax/grammar (e.g. Berwick and Chomsky 2011, 2016).
The claim is often that syntax in its entirety evolved suddenly, as a result of a single
event, as summarized clearly in Berwick (1998, pp. 338–339): “In this sense, there is
no possibility of an “intermediate” syntax between a non-combinatorial one and full
natural language—one either has Merge in all its generative glory, or one has no com-
binatorial syntax at all…” (see also Chomsky 2002, 2005; Piattelli-Palmarini 2010;
Moro 2008). This view is echoed in the more recent work of Berwick and Chomsky
(2011, pp. 29–31), where they assert that “the simplest assumption, hence the one we
adopt…, is that the generative procedure emerged suddenly as the result of a minor
mutation… There is no room in this picture for any precursors to language—say a
language-like system with only short sentences.”
1.3 Sudden (Saltationist) or Gradual Emergence? 5

In addition, contra Pinker and Bloom, Noam Chomsky and Robert Berwick ques-
tion the relevance of natural selection in language evolution, as well as more generally.
To take one example, according to Chomsky (2002), appealing to natural selection
via tinkering can be symptomatic of the lack of understanding. He states that “if you
take a look at anything that you don’t understand, it’s going to look like tinkering,”
but when things are properly understood, one realizes that there is much more order
in nature (139).
I return to saltationist approaches in Chap. 2, and to gradualist approaches in
Chap. 3. The next section outlines five important questions/problems that each
approach to language evolution should address.

1.4 The Core Questions to Answer: The Five Problems

What is the goal of the study of language evolution? Judging by the wide variety of
literature on this topic, it is clear that different researchers have different goals, and
attempt to answer different questions. The term “evolution” itself certainly encom-
passes a variety of meanings, including evolution in the sense of ultimate origins,
and evolution in the sense of (constant, ongoing) change. I believe that both facets
of the phenomenon of evolution need to be addressed by students of language evo-
lution, and here I identify what I believe to be the core questions (Problems) in this
respect. I will then discuss some key approaches to language evolution with an eye
to determining their potential in shedding light on these five core problems.
The Five Problems
(i) The Decomposition Problem
What was the language of our ancestors like in the deep evolutionary past,
at the point when language/grammar just started emerging? Are there any
structures in present-day languages that resemble/approximate those initial
structures (“living fossils”)?
Here, as everywhere else, this question needs to be broken down into smaller ques-
tions, such as: (i) what was the grammar of our ancestors like, or (ii) what was their
sound system like, and even more specifically: (iii) what were their sentences like, or
(iv) their encoding of transitivity, (v) of tense/aspect, (vi) of subordination. In other
words, the challenge is to determine how to decompose language into primitives or
stages, and how to use this decomposition to formulate and test various hypotheses.
Some researchers (including an anonymous reviewer of this monograph) say that
having specific hypotheses of this kind is not useful in studying language evolution,
arguing that it is just more speculative than operating with general claims.3 The reason
why I strongly disagree with this view is that only specific hypotheses have a chance to

3 Suchresearchers seem to have already decided, in advance of any systematic investigation, that
addressing the Decomposition Problem is too hard a puzzle to crack.
6 1 Introduction to Divergent Views

recreate the evolutionary past, opening roads to empirical testing, whether in the field
of linguistics, neuroscience, or genetics. Staying at the level of general claims would
be tantamount to simply claiming in e.g. public health research that some substances
are better for your health than others, without venturing specific claims which can then
be put to a test, such as that lard or sugar or certain medications affect your metabolic
health, all the while keeping in mind that these may just be statistical tendencies,
varying across individuals or populations. As we are well aware, testing and sorting
these out in medical research is a messy and complex process, but there just does
not seem to be an elegant alternative to this. I fully expect that any breakthroughs in
the study of language evolution will come from figuring out some small and specific
roles of various factors, rather than from generic, all-encompassing claims, such as
language evolution may be a purely cultural phenomenon, and culture is all you need;
or language reduces to syntactic Merge, and Merge is all you need (see below).
As pointed out in Fitch (2017b, p. 4), there is an unfortunate tendency in the
field of language evolution toward “single cause” (monolithic) thinking where one
particular trait is singled out as the key to language, and all other traits are considered
as irrelevant. In order to take a crack at the question of how language evolved, I
submit, all you need is everything! You need to understand the role of culture, the
role of genes, the role of language variation, the role of brain networks, the nature
of specific grammatical mechanisms that constitute language, and most difficult of
all, their intricate interactions.
One great advantage of having specific hypotheses regarding language evolution is
that one can identify approximations of initial stages of grammar in modern languages
(“living fossils”), allowing one to recreate the evolutionary past to some extent, as
well as to proceed to test various hypotheses by manipulating the fossils, for example
by comparing and contrasting their processing to the processing of grammatically
more elaborate structures, as discussed in Chap. 4. However, identifying such fossils
is not a trivial matter, and cannot be done impressionistically, but instead requires a
precise linguistic analysis (the Theoretical Grounding Problem, as introduced below).

(ii) The Selection Problem

How did the genetic basis for language come to be? What was the role of natu-
ral/sexual selection and cultural forces in spreading the initial language systems,
as well as later innovations?
For any gradualist approach that assumes many-genes-with-small-effects as the basis
for language (e.g. Pinker and Bloom 1990; Dediu 2015; Dediu and Ladd 2007; Fisher
2017), the challenge is to identify some specific stages/milestones in the evolution
of linguistic phenomena, and then see how certain innovations would have been
beneficial enough to trigger their selection and spread. A gradualist approach can
make use of language variation and “living fossils” in formulating testable hypotheses
in this respect (for specific examples, see Chaps. 3 and 4).
On the other hand, there are quite influential saltationist views of language evo-
lution (Chap. 2), which maintain that language arose at once, in its full complexity.
Within such views, one finds claims to the effect that a single (random) genetic
1.4 The Core Questions to Answer: The Five Problems 7

mutation enabled the transition from having no language at all to having language
as complex as human languages of today (e.g. Berwick and Chomsky 2011). These
approaches explicitly propose that there never existed, and never could have existed,
a simpler stage of language/grammar, considering grammar/syntax to be an all-or-
nothing package, an undecomposable block. Such approaches thus cannot appeal
to living fossils, or to language variation, for formulating specific hypotheses about
language evolution. The challenge remains for their proponents to provide a specific
scenario for how this transition from no language to full-blown language would have
happened, and how to make this scenario falsifiable and amenable to testing.
Whether one subscribes to gradualist or saltationist view of the emergence of
language, a significant majority of researchers seem to agree that the control of
language by humans is at least partly genetically based. If so, the charge of the field
of language evolution is to discover how this genetic basis came to be. What were the
selection forces that reacted to the ability to use language to produce this outcome? I
believe this to be the hardest question in the study of language evolution, but a crucial
one to address nonetheless. As it typically turns out to be the case, both nature and
nurture play a role in the evolution of complex phenomena like this, entangled in
a tightly coordinated dance. One illustrative example of that would be the role of
nature and nurture in lactose tolerance.
Without having discovered the gene that is responsible for lactose tolerance into
adulthood, it would seem to us that this is not a big deal: farming, as well as enjoying
milk and cheese, was a cultural invention, beneficial for humans, and it therefore
spread (culturally) and found an important place in human nutrition, at least in those
populations that engage in farming (“Culture is all you need”). There is no doubt, of
course, that farming and consuming dairy products were cultural inventions. What
is not obvious is that this cultural invention set up the selection pressure for bio-
logical evolution. Now we know that this invention quietly “discovered” the genes
of those individuals who were genetically better predisposed to benefit from it, and
the genetic variants of these individuals, and then their offspring, were gradually
(silently) selected until their alleles reached almost 100% frequency in some places
in Europe (Stone and Lurquin 2007; Fitch 2017b).
This type of selection sweep did not happen in places with no farming, indicating
that the selection was a response to the cultural invention of farming. Biological
evolution/selection takes place constantly, whether we can observe it or not, whether
we want it or not, whenever there is even a small advantage to reproduction/survival,
especially if the advantage is sustained over generations. Also important to keep in
mind is the variability among individuals. The populations did not just go from zero
individuals being lactose tolerant in adulthood, to close to 100% being tolerant. Not
at all. The adaptation went from a smaller percentage of those who just happened to
be more tolerant to almost entire populations being tolerant. This adaptation is a good
example of how culture and genes often interact: there is already genetic variability
among individuals in a population; a cultural invention takes place, and spreads (the
cultural aspect of evolution); this innovation “discovers” those individuals who are
just a bit better able to profit from this innovation and propagates their genetic make-
up, at the expense of others (the genetic aspect of evolution). This does not mean
8 1 Introduction to Divergent Views

that every single innovation, whether in language or nutrition, will lead to a selective
sweep—not at all. But this does mean that some such innovations can and do lead to
selection. And if we are students of language evolution, our charge is to find evidence
of selection for language traits, and to advance specific hypotheses that can probe
this question.
A good way to think about this process of silent (genetic) selection is in terms of
masking and unmasking of various genetic predispositions, in response to a stimulus
(Deacon 2003). There exists genetic variability among individuals (and populations),
which is in fact very useful for survival of species/populations, because it makes
populations as a whole better able to adjust and adapt to the changing environment,
including to cultural innovations. But make no mistake: populations being able to
adjust/adapt in this way implies fierce competition among individuals with different
genetic predispositions, and thus natural/sexual selection. Suppose that suddenly our
planet is engulfed in a dark cloud of thick smog, which remains for generations. Some
of us are most probably better able to survive this environmental disaster than others,
and the “unmasking” of this random advantage would now prove crucial for survival
and selection, and eventually this silent force may eliminate from the gene pool of
humans those who are genetically less able to tolerate such conditions.
This discussion also serves to emphasize that selection in this respect is not nec-
essarily geared toward selecting better or smarter creatures, which is unfortunately
often the (mis)understanding of the term “evolution.” For all we know, the selection
may have happened, or is still happening, for selfish, or dishonest, or rude traits. Or
for just random capabilities, such as digesting lactose into adulthood, or tolerating
smog inhalation; for whatever it is that brings a reproductive advantage to the indi-
viduals in that particular circumstance (see Sect. 3.5 for further discussion on natural
selection, and the culture-gene interactions).
If my focus in this monograph (and elsewhere) seems skewed toward natural
selection and genetic factors in language evolution at the expense of cultural factors,
that is only because the latter are not in doubt, and are much easier to identify. But it
is important to keep in mind that the trigger for natural selection would have been the
cultural invention of language forms, arguably initially simple and sparse, and later
more and more complex, and the response of the communities to such innovations.
As pointed out above, the cultural aspects of language (evolution) are not in doubt:
the perpetual change of language features; the competition among a variety of lan-
guage constructions; and the cultural transmission of language. We understand those
aspects of language very well, due to the extensive work of historical linguists, soci-
olinguists, typologists, linguists working on grammaticalization, psycholinguists,
etc. But the question that we do not have (m)any answers to so far is the question of
the genetic basis for language, how it came to be, and how natural selection would
have contributed to establishing such a genetic basis. We cannot avoid this question
if we want to get answers about the ultimate origins of language and its genetic basis.
Nonetheless, as discussed throughout this monograph, there is a strong distaste,
if not disdain, for natural selection when it comes to language, in the community
of researchers of language evolution, and this is reflected in various approaches, in
fact both those advocating cultural evolution alone, and those advocating one single
1.4 The Core Questions to Answer: The Five Problems 9

genetic mutation scenario. This may be coming from the idea that humans are not
naturally selecting anymore (as recently expressed in Bickerton 2007, p. 511), or
perhaps never were selecting, at least not for anything having to do with language or
cognition. Perhaps the idea is that we humans, having somehow reached the pinnacle
of perfection, are exempt from these messy and undignified biological processes. This
idea, however comforting it may seem to some, cannot be biologically viable. As
with lactose tolerance above, and as with almost any aspect of our existence, there
is a silent and relentless, not necessarily observable, selection of those genes/alleles
whose carriers are just a bit better adapted to some particular circumstance. And we
are certainly not selecting just for one circumstance at a time, but for a variety of
different traits, which are in complex interaction, only some of which may lead to
tangible genetic changes, or to selective sweeps.
It is interesting that we, as human beings, have much less of a problem accept-
ing that being strong, or being tall, or being healthy, are traits that are subject to
natural/sexual selection. But, are there people out there who are just as likely, or
more likely, to tolerate physical weakness (e.g. a limp) in their partner rather than
language impairment? Or those with a preference for people who are exceptionally
apt with language over those who are super athletic? If so, the chances are we are
still selecting for language prowess as well, including both positive and negative
selection.
(iii) The Loop Problem
Under what pressures did human/hominin brains evolve to be able to process the
complex languages of today? More broadly, what is that language-brain-genes
loop that connects (i) the cultural innovation of language; (ii) the establishment
of the genetic bases for language; and (iii) the evolution of brain networks nec-
essary for language processing?
According to Deacon (1997), the unusually expanded prefrontal brain regions are an
evolutionary response to a sort of virtual input with increased processing demands,
suggesting that language forced the brain to evolve in this particular way, or at least
that it co-evolved with it (see also Diller and Cann 2013). This was also Darwin’s
view (Sect. 1.1). Whether or not we believe in this particular scenario, this is certainly
a plausible scenario, and it should be subjected to testing by advancing specific
hypotheses that can prove or disprove it. While researchers may disagree about
how language evolved, there at least seems to be agreement that the brain had to
evolve in a certain way (genetically) in order to be able to support the processing of
language. Any approach to language evolution should outline specific ways for testing
their proposal for its relevance to this language-brain-genes loop. One promising
track is discussed in Chap. 4. It involves the FOXP2 gene mutation, implicated in a
language disorder, which emerged recently in evolution, and which has been shown
experimentally to enhance brain connectivity. Discovering more genetic effects of
this kind, i.e. more genes-with-small-effects, will be necessary for a fuller mosaic to
emerge.
10 1 Introduction to Divergent Views

(iv) The Variation Problem

Evolutionary proposals need to be compatible with the major typological
parameters of variation, as well as with the (attested) trends in language change.
This would help us avoid basing our theories of language evolution on some idiosyn-
cratic property of one language, or one language family, rather than on deep properties
of human language. If the initial stages of language were modest/simple, then it is
important to determine how typologically divergent language types were built on this
initial (common) foundation. This reasoning goes back to the evolutionary scholar
François Jacob and his claim (1977) that different tinkerers likely develop different
solutions to similar problems, such as different types of eyes. Natural selection tends
to use materials at its disposal to form a variety of adaptations to similar challenges.
Language variation in e.g. transitivity can be understood in the same light, as dis-
cussed in Chap. 3. This track also opens doors to exploring any genetic basis/bias for
cross-linguistic variation, as discussed in Chap. 4. We also now have a reasonably
good understanding of what types of language change are possible and likely, from
the studies of grammaticalization and other processes of language change (Sect.
3.2), as well as from the recent computer simulation studies (Sect. 3.5). Proposals
regarding language evolution should be consistent with such findings as well.
(v) The Theoretical Grounding Problem
To the extent that making headway on this complex question of language evolu-
tion requires specific and testable hypotheses, I contend that these hypotheses
need to be grounded in linguistic theories and generalizations.
Formulating specific and testable hypotheses about language evolution enables one
to narrow down the range of possible paths. But how do we know what counts as a
plausible hypothesis to start with? It may be that any hypothesis that is testable is
more useful in this respect than generic claims that are not testable. Additionally, I
contend that hypotheses stand a much better chance of addressing the essential, deep
properties of language if they are based on linguistic theories, and on the knowledge
accumulated in the field of linguistics, through field work (studying and documenting
less accessible or less known languages of the world); through typological gener-
alizations establishing the patterns of language variation and language universals;
and through theoretical in-depth analyses of how languages work as systems. In a
nutshell, the argument I am making seems straightforward: any specific hypothe-
sis about *language* evolution needs to be firmly rooted in the expert (linguistic)
understanding of what the essential properties of language are.
That linguistic background or insight is necessary for pursuing research on lan-
guage evolution is sometimes questioned by the researchers of language evolution,
including an anonymous reviewer of this monograph. Their reasoning seems to be
that any work on language evolution must be empirical and replicable, and that the
work of linguists does not necessarily rise to that level, and can thus be circumvented
in this enterprise. The reason why I strongly disagree with this view is that disregard-
ing the field of linguistics while studying language evolution would be tantamount
1.4 The Core Questions to Answer: The Five Problems 11

to disregarding the field of human biology/physiology while studying e.g. the evo-
lution of the human eye, or the human heart. Imperfect as they may be, findings in
linguistics are still the best we have regarding the architecture of language.
And there is another point that needs to be made, which seems lost in the recent
debates on language evolution: linguistics is an empirical science, especially when
it’s at its best. Much of it relies on the data collected from actual speakers, whether
of speakers living in western societies, or of speakers living in (for us) remote regions
of the world. The data are then subjected to a search for patterns and generaliza-
tions, and the latter are subjected to theoretical investigation, which in turn leads
to hypothesis testing against further data. As with any science, there are sometimes
faults and imperfections with linguistic research. It is also true that linguists often
disagree; that they can be entrenched in their own theories and points of view; and
that they sometimes operate with unfalsifiable claims. This however does not mean
that we should ignore the knowledge and insights of the whole field, just as we would
not want to ignore the expertise of medical research, despite its many imperfections.
The accumulated knowledge in linguistics, whether typological or more theoretical
in orientation, relies on thousands upon thousands of pieces of natural linguistic data,
coming from a variety of languages. The hypotheses that rely on, and draw upon,
this wealth of accumulated knowledge are much more likely to succeed in isolating
the most relevant phenomena for investigation.
As I proceed with an examination of the proposals regarding language evolution,
I will be considering how successfully they address the Five Problems identified
above, as well as how some of them can be enhanced by crossfertilization with other
available approaches in order to better address the Five Problems.

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Chapter 2
Sudden (Saltationist) Approaches
to Language Evolution

Keywords Continuity with other species · Grammatical/functional categories

Minimalist Program · Saltationist approaches

2.1 A Sampling of Saltationist Approaches

Many researchers have advocated an abrupt, saltationist view of language evolution,

including, but not limited to: Berwick (1998), Bickerton1 (1990, 1998), Lightfoot
(1991), Chomsky (2002, 2005), Berwick and Chomsky (2011, 2016), Piattelli-
Palmarini (2010), Piattelli-Palmarini and Uriagereka (2004, 2011), Moro (2008),
Hornstein (2009), Miyagawa (2017), Miyagawa et al. (2014), Di Sciullo (2013). In
this chapter I consider in some detail two such approaches to language evolution:
Berwick and Chomsky’s all or nothing saltationist approach is discussed in Sect. 2.2,
and Miyagawa’s approach, which allows some continuity, is discussed in Sect. 2.3.
For each approach, I consider how it addresses the Five Problems identified in
Chap. 1.

2.2 All or Nothing Saltationist Scenario (Berwick

and Chomsky)

The most influential saltationist approach to language evolution has to be that of

Noam Chomsky and Robert Berwick, who have argued persistently that syntax in its
entirety evolved suddenly, as a result of a single event, such as a minor mutation (see

1 Even though Bickerton proclaims a sudden emergence of language, his proposal of proto-language

seems to be more amenable to a gradualist approach, as discussed in Chap. 3.

© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 15
L. Progovac, A Critical Introduction to Language Evolution, Expert Briefs,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03235-7_2
16 2 Sudden (Saltationist) Approaches to Language Evolution

Sect. 1.3). They maintain that it is inconceivable for there to exist, or to have ever
existed, a human language which does not come complete with all the complexities
of modern syntax/grammar. In Berwick and Chomsky (2011, 29–31) they assert
that “the simplest assumption, hence the one we adopt…, is that the generative
procedure emerged suddenly as the result of a minor mutation… There is no room
in this picture for any precursors to language—say a language-like system with only
short sentences.”2 This view seems to rely on the bulk of language, or at least syntax,
being innate (biologically endowed).
As pointed out in Sect. 1.3, this view rejects natural selection as a relevant force
in evolving language. For example, Chomsky (2002) maintains that having to resort
to an explanation which invokes tinkering with structures through trial and error
reflects a lack of proper understanding, and when things are properly understood, one
realizes that there is much more order in nature. In this respect, Chomsky expresses
doubt about the adaptationist, Darwinian style evolution more generally, not just for
language.
Speaking of orderliness, most recently Berwick and Chomsky (2016) state that
to understand evolution “requires a more subtle mathematical analysis, and so far as
we can make out, none of the recent books on the evolution of language seem to have
grasped this in full.” In fact, they suggest that Darwin did not either, as he was not
mathematically minded, and they quote from Darwin’s autobiography: “‘my power
to follow a long and purely abstract train of thought is very limited; and therefore
I could never have succeeded with metaphysics or mathematics’” (p. 16). Perhaps
it is necessary to be reminded that the discovery of natural selection was probably
the most spectacular scientific feat ever, cracking the origin and nature of life itself,
a theory that has never stopped being relevant for scientific research, and that has
never stopped yielding new insights.
Berwick and Chomsky (2016, 21–22) further point out that natural selection for
beneficial traits is extremely hard to achieve, as there are typically also opposing
forces working against it, such as genetic drift, or chance. Nonetheless, for all the
relevant intents and purposes, natural selection in the Darwinian fashion does happen,
as they themselves acknowledge (p. 26), and actually adopt later in the book (e.g.
p. 59). They are concerned that it is especially difficult to spread a completely novel
mutation, before it reaches some critical “tipping point” in the population (p. 80). But
it is fair to say that the ability to use syntax, or language in general, did not have to
wait for a completely novel mutation to emerge. It is entirely possible that the initial
(rudimentary) uses of language relied on the existing genetic make-up, possibly
clusters of mutations, which characterized individuals who were just a little better
at vocalizing, at combining words, and/or at storing words or their combinations in
the memory. In fact, the problem for natural selection that Berwick and Chomsky
emphasize is much more of a problem for their own abrupt and discontinuous (single

2 In fact, saltationist views sometimes flirt with the idea that not just syntax/grammar, but language in

its entirety, including words, arose as one single event. While most claims are vague in this respect,
Piattelli-Palmarini (2010, 160) states that it is “illusory” to think that words can exist outside of
full-blown syntax, or that any proto-language (a là Bickerton 1990, 1995) can be reconstructed in
which words are used, but not syntax. See also Shigeru Miyagawa’s views discussed in Sect. 2.3.
2.2 All or Nothing Saltationist Scenario 17

mutation) approach, and much less of a problem for a gradualist, many-genes-with-

small-effects approach.3
To evaluate Berwick and Chomsky’s saltationist approach, the first question to
address is what motivates it, and the second question is how this view fares with the
Five Problems outlined in Chapter One, and how it can be subjected to testing and
falsification. It is important to acknowledge that this proposal addresses Problem
Five (Theoretical Grounding), as it does rely on a linguistic theory or framework,
in particular on certain most recent postulates in Minimalism, having to do with the
Strong Minimalist Thesis (SMT; see below). Part of the problem is, however, that
the proposal can be seen as circular in that it sells SMT as our best bet at explaining
evolution of language in simple and elegant terms (as a single mutation), while at
the same time claiming that a single mutation scenario for language evolution is
desirable because it follows from the syntactic postulate of SMT. In Berwick and
Chomsky’s (2016) own words, “UG [Universal Grammar] must meet the condition
of evolvability, and the more complex its character, the greater the burden on some
future account” of its evolution (p. 93). In other words, according to them, (i) in
order for syntax to be evolvable, syntax itself has to be extremely simple, and, (ii)
given that syntax must be super simple [as per (i)], syntax must have arisen through
one single, minor mutation. This is a circular, entangled argument, referred to as
Chomsky’s Knot in Progovac (2016). Nonetheless, it is important, in my view, to
address Problem Five in proposals concerning the evolution of language, which this
proposal does.
Berwick and Chomsky (2016) claim that the only serious way to approach the
question of language and its evolution is to adopt the Strong Minimalist Thesis
(SMT), according to which syntax reduces to a single (optimal) operation Merge,
presumably brought about by that one single minor mutation.4 In this sense, this
view can be characterized as the “All you need is Merge” view (title of Berwick’s
2011 paper). According to SMT, which is a recently advanced theoretical postulate,
language is an optimal solution to legibility conditions (e.g. Chomsky 2000, 96; see
also Epstein et al. 2010).
Berwick and Chomsky (2016) claim that the “generative process is optimal,”
based on “efficient computation” (p. 71), and that “this newly emerged computational
system for thought… is perfect, in so far as SMT is correct” (p. 80). However, Berwick
and Chomsky give no definition of “optimal” or “efficient” or “perfect” (see Progovac
2016 for a review of Berwick and Chomsky 2016), and this makes it impossible to

3 The novel mutation scenario would be preferred by Berwick and Chomsky (2016) because they
insist on a great and sharp discontinuity with other species when it comes to the capacity for
language. If the initial selection targeted mutations that were already available in some individuals
of other species, then the divide between “us and them” cannot be as sharp as Berwick and Chomsky
envision. But they do acknowledge on p. 52 that in principle selection can make use of variation
already present in a population. Miyagawa’s (2017) approach, as discussed in the following section,
does not seem to advocate such a sharp disconnect with the other species.
4 It is important to keep in mind that Merge is just an operation that combines two words/phrases into

a single unit or constituent. No matter how learned this term may seem when used in the literature
on language evolution, it is really just that: an operation that e.g. combines the article the and the
noun summer into the determiner phrase the summer.
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