www.ramoncasares.com 20190630 Syntax 1 Syntax Evolution: Problems and Recursion Ram´on Casares orcid: 0000-0003-4973-3128 To investigate the evolution of syntax, we need to ascertain the evo- lutionary rˆole of syntax and, before that, the very nature of syntax. Here, we will assume that syntax is computing. And then, since we are computationally Turing complete, we meet an evolutionary anomaly, the anomaly of syntax: we are syntactically too compe- tent for syntax. Assuming that problem solving is computing, and realizing that the evolutionary advantage of Turing completeness is full problem solving and not syntactic proficiency, we explain the anomaly of syntax by postulating that syntax and problem solving co-evolved in humans towards Turing completeness. Examining the requirements that full problem solving impose on language, we find firstly that semantics is not sufficient and that syntax is necessary to represent problems. Our final conclusion is that full problem solving requires a functional semantics on an infinite tree-structured syn- tax. Besides these results, the introduction of Turing completeness and problem solving to explain the evolution of syntax should help us to fit the evolution of language within the evolution of cognition, giving us some new clues to understand the elusive relation between language and thinking. Keywords: syntax evolution, problem solving, Turing completeness, recursion, language and thinking. arXiv:1508.03040v7 [cs.CL] 2 Jul 2019 This is doi: 10.6084/m9.figshare.4956359.v2, version 20190630. c 2017, 2019 Ram´on Casares; licensed as cc-by. Any comments on it to
[email protected] are welcome. www.ramoncasares.com 20190630 Syntax 2 Syntax Evolution: Problems and Recursion §1Introduction .