Article contents
Single words, multiple words, and the functions of language
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 February 2010
Abstract
Wilkins & Wakefield assign importance to motor systems but skip from anatomy to cognitive structure with little attention to behavior. Organisms, no matter how sophisticated, that do not behave in accord with what they know will fall by the evolutionary wayside. Facts about behavior can supplement the authors' theory, whose hierarchical structures can accommodate an evolutionary scenario in which a million years or more of functionally varied utterances mainly limited to single words is followed by an explosion of linguistic diversity with the development in the last 50,000 years or so of syntactically organized multiple word utterances.
- Type
- Open Peer Commentary
- Information
- Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 18 , Issue 1: An International Journal of Current Research and Theory with Open Peer Commentary , March 1995 , pp. 184 - 185
- Copyright
- Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995
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