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2007 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

2. Evolving Meaning: The Roles of Kin Selection, Allomothering and Paternal Care in Language Evolution

Author : W. Tecumseh Fitch

Published in: Emergence of Communication and Language

Publisher: Springer London

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Abstract

Many contemporary scholars agree that future theories of language evolution need to take a componential approach to language that breaks human language into separate mechanistic components such as vocal imitation, syntactic abilities, and propositional semantics. In this chapter, I discuss the evolution of the last component – the abilities and proclivities underlying honest, complex, propositional meanings. This is both a critical component of language, and one whose evolution is the hardest to explain, precisely because of its apparent uniqueness. Nonetheless, I argue, the comparative approach has important insights to offer in this domain. I briefly discuss the hypothesis that kin selection played an important, but neglected, role in driving the evolution of rich semantic communication. I then review several bodies of comparative data not addressed in previous discussions.

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next chapter ‘Needs only’ Analysis in Linguistic Ontogeny and Phylogeny
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Metadata
Title
Evolving Meaning: The Roles of Kin Selection, Allomothering and Paternal Care in Language Evolution
Author
W. Tecumseh Fitch
Copyright Year
2007
Publisher
Springer London
Book
Emergence of Communication and Language

Print ISBN: 978-1-84628-491-5

Electronic ISBN: 978-1-84628-779-4

Copyright Year: 2007

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-84628-779-4_2

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