Ambiguity is a defining property of natural language distinguishing it from artificial
languages. It would seem to be dysfunctional, and therefore its ubiquity in language poses …

The ban on the discussion of language evolution by the Société de Linguistique de Paris in
1866 surely ranks among the most defied gag orders ever issued. While there has never …

In 1866, the Société de Linguistique of Paris met to issue a moratorium on papers
concerning language evolution. Less well known is that the same meeting also prohibited …

This thesis investigates the evolutionary plausibility of the Minimalist Program. Is such a
theory of language reasonable given the assumption that the human linguistic capacity has …

This article deals with the different views of researchers on the central properties to be
accounted for in language evolution. Stephen Anderson presents certain structural …

The evolution of natural language has again become the subject of lively debate. Like in
previous discussions of this topic, an important distinction is often ignored: the origin of both …

How can we explain the origins of our uniquely human compositional system of
communication? 1 Much of the recent work tackling this problem (eg Bickerton 1990; Pinker …

How can we explain the origins of our uniquely human compositional system of
communication? Recently there has been a resurgence of interest in this and other …

This book explores issues at the core of modern linguistics and cognitive science. Why are
all languages similar in some ways and in others utterly different? Why do languages …

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 …