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| Authoritative: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X08005086 (Publisher's PDF... likely be available here.) |
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Abstract
Universal Grammar (UG) is indeed evolutionarily implausible. But if languages are just to a large primate brain, it is hard to see why other primates do not have complex languages. The answer is that humans have evolved a specialized and uniquely human cognitive architecture, whose main function is to compute mappings between arbitrary signals and communicative intentions. This underlies the development of language in the human species.BibTex
@article{deruiter08BBScomments,
author={J. P. de Ruiter and Stephen C. Levinson},
title={A biological infrastructure for communication underlies the cultural evolution of languages},
journal={Behavioral and Brain Sciences},
year={2008},
volume={31},
number={5},
pages={518-518},
doi={10.1017/S0140525X08005086},
url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/deruiter08BBScomments.html}
}