What Evolved and Who Made It Happen?

Namhee Lee & John H. Schumann

UCLA

nhlee@ucla.edu

This paper will explore two issues.  The first is what evolved in
language evolution.  Most accounts of the evolution of language focus on
an explanation for how syntax evolved.  But the syntax of spoken
language and the syntax of written language (or composed language in
general) are quite different.  Discourse analysis and conversational
analysis has shown that in the syntax of everyday speech, sentences have
no pride of place and subordination is actually quite rare.  Therefore,
if the theory of the evolution of language attempts to account for the
complicated syntax, which has been the concern of linguists for the last
several decades, it will not be addressing the kind of language that
evolved.  Complex syntax only seems to appear in composed language --
oral or written.  Both these forms of language are created off line with
very different psycholinguistic constraints than those involved in
spontaneous linguistic interaction.  In a sense, composed language is a
technology that has allowed us to artificially alter syntax.  As such,
it is quite like genetically altered strawberries.  If one wanted to
account for a December strawberry and tried to do so by natural
selection one would be hopelessly led astray.  Such a strawberry is only
possible through mediation by the technologies of genetic engineering. 
In the same way, complex syntax may be possible only through the
mediation of the technologies such as writing that are involved in
composed language.  Another example would be trying to explain the human
ability to see inside the nucleus of the cell.  The human eye can do
that, but only the through the mediation of the technology provided by
an electron microscope.  And we would not want to try to explain the
evolution of the human visual system by accounting for our current
ability to see inside the cell.  Therefore, we will argue that what has
to be explained in a theory of evolution language is the relatively
uncomplicated syntax of ordinary conversation. 

The second issue involves the role of children in the evolution of
language.  Here we will draw on arguments from pidgin and creole studies
to make the case that children, in general, are no more responsible for
the innovations in language evolution than are adults.  Bickerton's
bioprogram hypothesis accrued to children special abilities to
grammaticalize language.  But there is substantial evidence that the
proffering of innovative grammatical forms is largely done by adult
generations, and then the children contribute simply by selecting among
these forms those that are easiest for them to learn, produce and
understand.  The selection process reduces the variation in the adultsĄŻ
speech and contributes to the stabilization of the language, but it is
not a major source of grammatical innovation.  The children, as expert
pattern detectors and analyzers of the statistical properties of the
input, smooth out the innovations, adapting them to their cognition. 

We view the evolution of language as the emergence of grammatical
structure as a complex adaptive system.  Hominids capable of producing
words generate strings of words to express more complex meanings.  In
the interaction among the speakers, certain strings become frequent and
then these patterns exist as an attractor state or grammar.  In this
process, children are simply agents participating in the interaction
from which the grammar will emerge.  From this perspective, language is
not a product of the brain.  It is the product of many hominid agents
interacting with each other, using many items (words) in order to make
meanings.  The brain mediates this process in a sense that it produces,
comprehends, and learns the forms, but the language itself exists as an
invisible and nonmaterial cultural artifact or technology between and
among speakers.