Machine generated contents note: Introduction: New perspectives on an old academic question
Jiirgen Trabant 1
1. Biological aspects of the question
On the subcortical bases of the evolution of language
Philip Lieberman 21
Origin of the human language faculty: the language amoeba hypothesis
Eors Szathmdry 41
2. The first language
The apparent paradox of language evolution: can Universal Grammar be
explained by adaptive selection?
Manfred Bierwisch 55
Elementary forms of linguistic organisation
Wolfgang Klein 81
From potential to realisation: an episode in the origin of language
Bernard Comrie 103
Protothought had no logical names
James R. Hurford 119
The birth of rules
Jean Aitchison 133
How language changed the genes: toward an explicit account of the
evolution of language
Daniel Dor and Eva Jablonka 149
3. Beyond biolinguistics
The narration "instinct": signalling behaviour, communication,
and the selective value of storytelling
Volker Heeschen 179
Taxonomic controversies in the twentieth century
Merritt Ruhlen 197
The origin of origins: a play in five acts, with a prologue
im Himmel and an epilogue auf der Erde
Henri Meschonnic 215
References 229
Index 257.