Evolutionary linguistics

The central question for linguistics:

“Why are languages the way they are and not some other way?”

l In particular, human language is unique in the complexity of its syntax.

Evolutionary linguistics seeks an answer by asking:

“How did they come to be that way?”

This talk:

l Survey two approaches to the why question: ¡ Standard nativism ¡ Evolutionary nativism l Introduce a new approach: the Iterated Learning Model l Present two simulations of the ILM l Argue that language itself is an evolutionary system