The Emergence of Language: a Review of Ljiljana Progovac (2019); A Critical Introduction to Language Evolution: Current
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BOOK REVIEW
The Emergence of Language: a Review of Ljiljana Progovac (2019); A Critical Introduction to Language Evolution: Current Controversies and Future Prospects Majid Manoochehri 1
# Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Human language, as an open-ended vocabulary integrated with a syntax that supports the hierarchical combination of words into larger structures to freely express novel meanings, is unique to our species and differs immensely from the communication systems of our closest living evolutionary relatives (Arbib 2012). But due to the lack of evidence, no one knows for sure where, when, and even how language emerged or which one, if any, of other hominin species had language. Accordingly, there are profound controversies over the evolution of language, which are the focus of attention in Progovac’s book. Here, specifically, controversies between gradualists, such as Pinker, Bloom, and Progovac herself on one side, and saltationists, such as Chomsky and Berwick on the other side, are of the primary interest (Progovac 2019). The author commences with providing a theoretical framework to examine different approaches of language evolution in the first chapter. Many hypotheses, some of which are incompatible or in conflict, are reviewed and compared. Progovac’s proposal is that there are five important questions/problems that each approach to language evolution should address. These are decomposition, selection, loop, variation, and the theoretical grounding problems, which cover different aspects, from simulating the protolanguage of prehistoric hominins to formulating specific and testable hypotheses. The second chapter of the book is devoted to saltationist hypotheses. Chomsky and Berwick’s approach, which is broadly criticized by Progovac, argues that syntax in its entirety evolved suddenly. From this view, syntax cannot be decomposed into stages, because it is an optimal
* Majid Manoochehri [email protected] 1
Department of Psychology, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, Islamic Azad University, Kerman Branch, Emam Ali Blvd, Kerman, Iran
undecomposable block and has to exist exactly in this optimal form. According to Chomsky and Berwick, syntax is the product of one single mutation, and it is initially useful only for thought, but not for communication. In this scenario, language sprung into existence suddenly, sometime before 50,000 years ago (Berwick and Chomsky 2016; Chomsky 2005). A point to notice about Chomsky and colleagues’ perspective is its changes over time, such as pushing the estimated date of the emergence of language from 50,000 years ago to about 200,000 years ago. Progovac argues that this approach does not appropriately address all of the five problems, especially, the decomposition (it denies the possibility of simpler origins of syntax or existence of syntactic fossils), the variation (it denies the existence of any significant syntactic variation), and the selection problems (it proposes only one single mutation as the basis for language). The second approach categor
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