The Evolution of Human Communication and Language
CHAPTER 14 The evolution of human communication and language James R. Hurford 14.1 Introduction territorial songs, and by vervet monkey alarm calls. We are not yet sure exactly what is conveyed Human language stands out in a number of ways by whale songs, but a reasonable default hypoth- from the topics of almost all of the other chapters esis would seem to be that they convey messages of in this book. Although every communication sys- the same expressive power as complex birdsongs. tem can claim in some way to be unique, human We may be wrong about this, but the current belief language is spectacularly unique in its complexity is thus that any human language is capable of com- and expressive power. municating the sum total of all that any animal spe- Complexity is hard to measure, but a clue is cies can communicate, and more. More, because we given by the fact that The Cambridge Grammar of alone, as far as we know, can tell each other about the English Language (Huddleston & Pullum, 2002), ctional or abstract objects, and about events far which is just a description of Modern Standard distant in time and space. English, weighs in at over 1700 pages. The head- In the bulk of this chapter, I will list and discuss ings of the rst half-dozen descriptive chapters, some of the most important differences and simi- out of eighteen, are: The verb, The clause: comple- larities between human languages and nonhuman ments, Nouns and noun phrases, Adjectives and communication systems, with an evolutionary adverbs, Prepositions and preposition phrases, perspective, in particular drawing on results from and The clause: adjuncts.
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