Index

Chapters in this book

1. I-IV I
2. Contents V
3. Introduction: New perspectives on an old academic question 1
4. 1. Biological aspects of the question
5. On the subcortical bases of the evolution of language 21
6. The origin of the human language faculty: the language amoeba hypothesis 41
7. 2. The first language
8. The apparent paradox of language evolution: can Universal Grammar be explained by adaptive selection? 55
9. Elementary forms of linguistic organisation 81
10. From potential to realisation: an episode in the origin of language 103
11. Protothought had no logical names 119
12. The birth of rules 133
13. How language changed the genes: toward an explicit account of the evolution of language 149
14. 3. Beyond biolinguistics
15. The narration "instinct": signalling behaviour, communication, and the selective value of storytelling 179
16. Taxonomic controversies in the twentieth century 197
17. The origin of origins: a play in five acts, with a prologue im Himmel and an epilogue auf der Erde 215
18. References 229
19. Index 257