Tom Givon,
           University of Oregon

  HUMAN LANGUAGE AS AN ADAPTIVE PRODUCT OF EVOLUTION

One prerequisite to an evolutionary account of human language is a
functional-adaptive perspective on language and communication, including
not only the obvious components (phonology, semantics) but also the one
where, most commonly, an adaptive perspective tends to be altogether
missing--grammar and discourse- pragmatics. 

A second prerequisite is an intellectual commitment to cross-
disciplinary collaboration, whereby the data-bases and theoretical
resources of cognitive psychology, anthropology, neuroscience and
evolutionary biology are pooled together with what linguistics may offer
in terms of the structure and adaptive function(s) of language. 

A third prerequisite is that one take to heart the lessons of
evolutionary biology, in terms of (at least) the following general
principles:
(i) adaptive-selectional motivation (noted above)
(ii) Interaction between variation and selection.
(iii) Accretion of genetic ('innate') stability.
(iv) Graduality and pre-adaptation
(v) Terminal addition and/or functional extention
(vi) Distributive modularity (for complex functions)
(vii) Developmental parallelisms ('recapitulation')

In this paper I'll try to address some core components of the
language-evolution scenario in the context of these general principles. I
will suggest the most likely directly-preceding pre-adaptations of the
various sub-components of the human communication system. I will also
suggest some developmental parallelisms between linguistic diachrony,
language learning and a (putative scenario of) language evolution.