Martin Haspelmath

How Evolutionary Adaptation Explains Language Structures

Linguists are often talking about evolution these days, but language structures are rarely explained by evolutionary adaptation. But in this talk, I claim that a wide range of structures (e.g. phoneme inventories, case-marking patterns, word order patterns, causative constructions, subordinate-clause constructions) can be explained as adapted to their "environments", i.e. the needs of language users. Why has this often been overlooked by linguists? I will show that this is because linguists have often confused language-particular explanations with general explanations, and biolinguistic explanations with explanations in terms of cultural evolution. Once these distinctions are made, it should become clear that the majority of successful general explanations of language structure are based on evolutionary adaptation.
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Abralin ao Vivo - Linguists Online is an initiative of Abralin - Associação Brasileira de Linguística in cooperation with several linguistics associations.

For more information about Abralin ao Vivo - Linguists Online, visit: aovivo.abralin.org.

Please consider donating to Abralin’s funding for the preservation of indigenous languages: http://abral.in/donate.
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Abralin ao Vivo - Linguists Online é um projeto da Abralin - Associação Brasileira de Linguística, com a colaboração de várias associações de linguística.

Para mais informações sobre o projeto, acesse a página aovivo.abralin.org.

Por favor, considere a possibilidade de doar para o fundo da Abralin para a preservação de línguas indígenas: http://abral.in/doe.