@book{openalexw1994246825,
    author = "Bickerton, Derek",
    title = "Roots of language",
    year = "1981",
    abstract = "Roots of language was originally published in 1981 by Karoma Press (Ann Arbor). It was the first work to systematically develop a theory first suggested by Coelho in the late nineteenth century: that the creation of creole languages somehow reflected universal properties of language. The book also proposed that the same set of properties would be found to emerge in normal first-language acquisition and must have emerged in the original evolution of language. These proposals, some of which were elaborated in an article in Behavioral and Brain Sciences (1984), were immediately controversial and gave rise to a great deal of subsequent research in creoles, much of it aimed at rebutting the theory. The book also served to legitimize and stimulate research in language evolution, a topic regarded as off-limits by linguists for over a century. The present edition contains a foreword by the author bringing the theory up to date; a fuller exposition of many of its aspects can be found in the author’s most recent work, More than nature needs (Harvard University Press, 2014).",
    openalex = "W1994246825",
    references = "doi101111j174966321976tb25504x"
}

@book{lieberman1984the2,
    author = "Lieberman, P",
    title = "The Biology and Evolution of Language",
    year = "1984",
    publisher = "Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Lieberman, P., 1984, The Biology and Evolution of Language: Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press.}"
}

@article{doi101073pnas85166002,
    author = "Cavalli-Sforza, L. Luca and Piazza, Alberto and Menozzi, Paolo and Mountain, Joanna L.",
    title = "Reconstruction of human evolution: bringing together genetic, archaeological, and linguistic data.",
    year = "1988",
    journal = "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences",
    abstract = {The genetic information for this work came from a very large collection of gene frequencies for "classical" (non-DNA) polymorphisms of the world aborigines. The data were grouped in 42 populations studied for 120 alleles. The reconstruction of human evolutionary history thus generated was checked with statistical techniques such as "boot-strapping". It changes some earlier conclusions and is in agreement with more recent ones, including published and unpublished DNA-marker results. The first split in the phylogenetic tree separates Africans from non-Africans, and the second separates two major clusters, one corresponding to Caucasoids, East Asians, Arctic populations, and American natives, and the other to Southeast Asians (mainland and insular), Pacific islanders, and New Guineans and Australians. Average genetic distances between the most important clusters are proportional to archaeological separation times. Linguistic families correspond to groups of populations with very few, easily understood overlaps, and their origin can be given a time frame. Linguistic superfamilies show remarkable correspondence with the two major clusters, indicating considerable parallelism between genetic and linguistic evolution. The latest step in language development may have been an important factor determining the rapid expansion that followed the appearance of modern humans and the demise of Neanderthals.},
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.85.16.6002",
    doi = "10.1073/pnas.85.16.6002",
    openalex = "W2051446204",
    references = "doi101007bf00291407"
}

@misc{lewin1988linguists1,
    author = "Lewin, R",
    title = "Linguists Search for the Mother Tongue",
    year = "1988",
    howpublished = "Science, v. 242, p. 1128-1129",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Lewin, R., 1988, Linguists Search for the Mother Tongue: Science, v. 242, p. 1128-1129.}"
}

@article{doi101017s0140525x00081061,
    author = "Pinker, Steven and Bloom, Paul",
    title = "Natural language and natural selection",
    year = "1990",
    journal = "Behavioral and Brain Sciences",
    abstract = "Abstract Many people have argued that the evolution of the human language faculty cannot be explained by Darwinian natural selection. Chomsky and Gould have suggested that language may have evolved as the by-product of selection for other abilities or as a consequence of as-yet unknown laws of growth and form. Others have argued that a biological specialization for grammar is incompatible with every tenet of Darwinian theory – that it shows no genetic variation, could not exist in any intermediate forms, confers no selective advantage, and would require more evolutionary time and genomic space than is available. We examine these arguments and show that they depend on inaccurate assumptions about biology or language or both. Evolutionary theory offers clear criteria for when a trait should be attributed to natural selection: complex design for some function, and the absence of alternative processes capable of explaining such complexity. Human language meets these criteria: Grammar is a complex mechanism tailored to the transmission of propositional structures through a serial interface. Autonomous and arbitrary grammatical phenomena have been offered as counterexamples to the position that language is an adaptation, but this reasoning is unsound: Communication protocols depend on arbitrary conventions that are adaptive as long as they are shared. Consequently, language acquisition in the child should systematically differ from language evolution in the species, and attempts to analogize them are misleading. Reviewing other arguments and data, we conclude that there is every reason to believe that a specialization for grammar evolved by a conventional neo-Darwinian process.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1017/s0140525x00081061",
    doi = "10.1017/s0140525x00081061",
    openalex = "W2162471372",
    references = "caplan1983morality, doi1010160010027789900231, doi1010160022283668903926, doi1010160022519364900384, doi1010160162309589900137, doi101016s109051380100068x, doi101017s0094837300004310, doi101017s0094837300005224, doi101017s0140525x00047695, doi101017s0305004100015644, doi101038369716c0, doi101086276408, doi101086284064, doi101086406755, doi101098rspb19790086, doi101126science1090005, doi101126science6107993, doi101126science7455683, doi101126science7466396, doi101126science860134, doi101159000156428, doi1015159783110884166, doi1023071423235, doi1023072103745, doi1023072260026, doi1023072803365, doi1023073037993, doi102307414947, doi104159harvard9780674184404, doi105962bhltitle27468, doi107208chicago97802263088830010001, falk1983cerebral, openalexw1577806554, openalexw2171582839, openalexw2624262714, openalexw3038830718, openalexw3135630760"
}

@book{doi101093oso97801985464120010001,
    author = "Harvey, Paul and Pagel, Mark",
    title = "The Comparative Method in Evolutionary Biology",
    year = "1991",
    abstract = "Abstract From Darwin onward, it has been second nature for evolutionary biologists to think comparatively because comparisons establish the generality of evolutionary phenomena. Do large genomes slow down development? What lifestyles select for large brains? Are extinction rates related to body size? These are all questions for the comparative method, and this book is about how such questions can be answered. The first chapter elaborates on suitable questions for the comparative approach and shows how it complements other approaches to problem-solving in evolution. The second chapter identifies the biological causes of similarity among closely related species for almost any observed character. The third chapter discusses methods for reconstructing phylogenetic trees and ancestral character states. The fourth chapter sets out to develop statistical tests that will determine whether different characters that exist in discrete states show evidence for correlated evolution. Chapter 5 turns to comparative analyses of continuously varying characters. Chapter 6 looks at allometry to exemplify the themes and methods discussed earlier, while the last chapter looks to future development of the comparative approach in both molecular and organismic biology.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198546412.001.0001",
    doi = "10.1093/oso/9780198546412.001.0001",
    openalex = "W4388245928"
}

@article{doi105860choice295104,
    title = "The comparative method in evolutionary biology",
    year = "1992",
    journal = "Choice Reviews Online",
    abstract = "The comparative method for studying adaptation why worry about phylogeny? reconstructing phylogenetic trees and ancestral character states comparative analysis of discrete data comparative analysis of continuous variables determining the form of comparative relationships.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.5860/choice.29-5104",
    doi = "10.5860/choice.29-5104",
    openalex = "W1488393970"
}

@book{openalexw2115992100,
    author = "Dunbar, Robin",
    title = "Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language",
    year = "1996",
    journal = "Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences",
    abstract = "1. Talking Heads 2. Into The Social Whirl 3. The Importance Of Being Earnest 4. Of Brains and Groups and Evolution 5. The Ghost in the Machine 6. Up Through the Mists of Time 7. First Words 8. Babel's Legacy 9. The Little Rituals of Life 10. The Scars of Evolution Bibliography Index",
    openalex = "W2115992100"
}

@article{doi105860choice351500,
    title = "The symbolic species: the co-evolution of language and the brain",
    year = "1997",
    journal = "Choice Reviews Online",
    abstract = "This revolutionary book provides fresh answers to long-standing questions of human origins and consciousness. Drawing on his breakthrough research in comparative neuroscience, Terrence Deacon offers a wealth of insights into the significance of symbolic thinking: from the co-evolutionary exchange between language and brains over two million years of hominid evolution to the ethical repercussions that followed man's newfound access to other people's thoughts and emotions. Informing these insights is a new understanding of how Darwinian processes underlie the brain's development and function as well as its evolution. In contrast to much contemporary neuroscience that treats the brain as no more or less than a computer, Deacon provides a new clarity of vision into the mechanism of mind. It injects a renewed sense of adventure into the experience of being human.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.5860/choice.35-1500",
    doi = "10.5860/choice.35-1500",
    openalex = "W2148300948",
    references = "doi101006jhev19960099, doi101615critrevneurobiolv10i3430, doi1023071423235, doi1023071423541, doi105860choice285670"
}

@article{doi105860choice364312,
    title = "Approaches to the evolution of language: social and cognitive bases",
    year = "1999",
    journal = "Choice Reviews Online",
    abstract = "Introduction Michael Studdert-Kennedy, Chris Knight, and James R. Hurford Part I. Grounding Language Function in Social Cognition: 1. Introduction: Grounding language function in social cognition Chris Knight 2. On discontinuing the continuity-discontinuity debate Jean Aitchison 3. The origin of language and cognition Ib Ulbaek 4. Mimesis and the executive suite: missing links in language evolution Merlin Donald 5. Ritual/speech co-evolution: a 'selfish gene' solution to the problem of deception Chris Knight 6. Theory of mind and the evolution of language Robin Dunbar 7. Old wives' tales: the gossip hypothesis and the reliability of cheap signals Camilla Power 8. Altruism, status, and the origin of relevance Jean-Louis Dessalles 9. The evolution of language from social intelligence Robert Worden Part II. The Emergence of Phonology: 10. Introduction: the emergence of phonology Michael Studdert-Kennedy 11. Long call structure in apes as a possible precursor for language Maria Ujhelyi 12. Social sound-making as a precursor to spoken language John F. Locke 13. The particulate origins of language generativity: from syllable to gesture Michael Studdert-Kennedy 14. Evolution of the mechanisms of language output: comparative neurobiology of vocal and manual communication Peter MacNeilage 15. Systemic constraints and adaptive change in the formation of sound structure Bjoern Lindblom 16. The development of sound systems in human language Klaus J. Kohler 17. Synonymy avoidance, phonology and the origin of syntax Andrew Carstairs-McCarthy Part III. The Emergence of Syntax: 18. Introduction: the emergence of syntax James R. Hurford 19. On the supposed 'counterfunctionality' of universal grammar: some evolutionary implications Frederick J. Newmeyer 20. Language evolution and the minimalist program: the origins of syntax Robert C. Berwick 21. Catastrophic evolution: the case for a single step from protolanguage to full human language Derek Bickerton 22. Fitness and the selective adaptation of language Simon Kirby 23. Synthesizing the origins of language and meaning using co-evolution, self-organization and level formation Luc Steels 24. Computational simulations of the emergence of grammar John Batali.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.5860/choice.36-4312",
    doi = "10.5860/choice.36-4312",
    openalex = "W1542566156"
}

@book{openalexw1482958624,
    author = "Lightfoot, David",
    title = "The Development of Language: Acquisition, Change, and Evolution",
    year = "1999",
    journal = "Medical Entomology and Zoology",
    openalex = "W1482958624"
}

@book{doi101017cbo9780511606441,
    author = "Knight, Chris and Knight, Chris and Knight, Chris and Knight, Chris and Burling, Robbins and Noble, Jason and Dessalles, Jean-Louis and Power, Camilla and Knight, Chris and Studdert‐Kennedy, Michael and Vihman, Marilyn M. and MacNeilage, Peter F. and Studdert‐Kennedy, Michael and Boer, Bart De and Livingstone, Daniel and Hurford, James R. and Lightfoot, David and Carstairs-McCarthy, Andrew and Bickerton, Derek and Wray, Alison and Kirby, Simon and Hurford, James R. and Worden, Robert P. and Newmeyer, Frederick J.",
    title = "The Evolutionary Emergence of Language",
    year = "2000",
    booktitle = "Cambridge University Press eBooks",
    abstract = "Language has no counterpart in the animal world. Unique to Homo sapiens, it appears inseparable from human nature. But how, when and why did it emerge? The contributors to this volume - linguists, anthropologists, cognitive scientists, and others - adopt a modern Darwinian perspective which offers a bold synthesis of the human and natural sciences. As a feature of human social intelligence, language evolution is driven by biologically anomalous levels of social cooperation. Phonetic competence correspondingly reflects social pressures for vocal imitation, learning, and other forms of social transmission. Distinctively human social and cultural strategies gave rise to the complex syntactical structure of speech. This book, presenting language as a remarkable social adaptation, testifies to the growing influence of evolutionary thinking in contemporary linguistics. It will be welcomed by all those interested in human evolution, evolutionary psychology, linguistic anthropology, and general linguistics.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511606441",
    doi = "10.1017/cbo9780511606441",
    openalex = "W10263030"
}

@book{doi101017cbo9780511612862,
    author = "Mufwene, Salikoko S.",
    title = "The Ecology of Language Evolution",
    year = "2001",
    booktitle = "Cambridge University Press eBooks",
    abstract = "This major 2001 work explores the development of creoles and other new languages, focusing on the conceptual and methodological issues they raise for genetic linguistics. Written by an internationally renowned linguist, the book discusses the nature and significance of internal and external factors or 'ecologies' that bear on the evolution of a language. The book surveys a wide range of examples of changes in the structure, function and vitality of languages, and suggests that similar ecologies have played the same kinds of roles in all cases of language evolution. Drawing on major theories of language formation, macroecology and population genetics, Mufwene proposes a common approach to the development of creoles and other new languages. The Ecology of Language Evolution will be welcomed by students and researchers in sociolinguistics, creolistics, theoretical linguistics and theories of evolution.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511612862",
    doi = "10.1017/cbo9780511612862",
    openalex = "W1550391390"
}

@article{doi101126science1065889,
    author = "Huelsenbeck, John P. and Ronquist, Fredrik and Nielsen, Rasmus and Bollback, Jonathan P.",
    title = "Bayesian Inference of Phylogeny and Its Impact on Evolutionary Biology",
    year = "2001",
    journal = "Science",
    abstract = "As a discipline, phylogenetics is becoming transformed by a flood of molecular data. These data allow broad questions to be asked about the history of life, but also present difficult statistical and computational problems. Bayesian inference of phylogeny brings a new perspective to a number of outstanding issues in evolutionary biology, including the analysis of large phylogenetic trees and complex evolutionary models and the detection of the footprint of natural selection in DNA sequences.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1065889",
    doi = "10.1126/science.1065889",
    openalex = "W2141913814",
    references = "doi101093bioinformatics178754, doi101093oxfordjournalsmolbeva025892, doi1023072412923"
}

@article{doi101038nature01025,
    author = "Enard, Wolfgang and Przeworski, Molly and Fisher, Simon E. and Lai, Cecilia and Wiebe, Victor and Kitano, Takashi and Monaco, Anthony P. and Pääbo, Svante",
    title = "Molecular evolution of FOXP2, a gene involved in speech and language",
    year = "2002",
    journal = "Nature",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1038/nature01025",
    doi = "10.1038/nature01025",
    openalex = "W2107934935",
    references = "doi10103831927, doi101093bioinformatics152174, doi101111j155856461991tb04425x"
}

@book{doi101093acprofoso97801982701260010001,
    author = "Jackendoff, Ray",
    title = "Foundations of Language",
    year = "2002",
    abstract = "Abstract This book surveys the last thirty-five years of research in generative linguistics and related fields and offers a new understanding of how language, the brain, and perception intermesh. The book renews the conclusions of early generative linguistics: that language can be a valuable entrée into understanding the human mind and brain. The approach is interdisciplinary. The book proposes that the creativity of language derives from multiple parallel generative systems linked by interface components. This shift in basic architecture allows for a reconception of mental grammar and how it is learned. The book aims to reintegrate linguistics with philosophy of mind, cognitive and developmental psychology, evolutionary biology, neuroscience, and computational linguistics. Among the major topics treated are language processing, the relation of language to perception, the innateness of language, and the evolution of the language capacity, as well as more standard issues in linguistic theory such as the roles of syntax and the lexicon. In addition, this book offers a sophisticated theory of semantics that incorporates insights from philosophy of language, logic and formal semantics, lexical semantics of various stripes, cognitive grammar, psycholinguistic and neurolinguistic approaches, and the author's own conceptual semantics.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198270126.001.0001",
    doi = "10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198270126.001.0001",
    openalex = "W3140196993",
    references = "doi1010160010027789900231, doi101017s0140525x00005756, doi101017s0140525x00076512, doi101017s0140525x00081061, doi101098rspb19790086, doi101126science27452941926, openalexw1558866924"
}

@article{doi101126science29855981569,
    author = "Hauser, Michael A. and Chomsky, Noam and Fitch, W. Tecumseh",
    title = "The Faculty of Language: What Is It, Who Has It, and How Did It Evolve?",
    year = "2002",
    journal = "Science",
    abstract = "We argue that an understanding of the faculty of language requires substantial interdisciplinary cooperation. We suggest how current developments in linguistics can be profitably wedded to work in evolutionary biology, anthropology, psychology, and neuroscience. We submit that a distinction should be made between the faculty of language in the broad sense (FLB) and in the narrow sense (FLN). FLB includes a sensory-motor system, a conceptual-intentional system, and the computational mechanisms for recursion, providing the capacity to generate an infinite range of expressions from a finite set of elements. We hypothesize that FLN only includes recursion and is the only uniquely human component of the faculty of language. We further argue that FLN may have evolved for reasons other than language, hence comparative studies might look for evidence of such computations outside of the domain of communication (for example, number, navigation, and social relations).",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1126/science.298.5598.1569",
    doi = "10.1126/science.298.5598.1569",
    openalex = "W2165545766",
    references = "doi101016s0019995867911655, doi101017s0140525x00081061, doi101037h0020279, doi101038264746a0, doi10108021548331196711707799, doi101093acprofoso97801982701260010001, doi101093oso97801985029440010001, doi101111j155856461995tb04464x, doi101126science27452941926, doi101126science28654492526, doi1012880000553719500500000010, doi1015159781400820108, doi101537ase188722495, doi1023073679778, doi105860choice475652, doi107551mitpress97802625273470010001, openalexw1482083705"
}

@article{doi101016jcognition200502005,
    author = "Fitch, W. Tecumseh and Hauser, Michael A. and Chomsky, Noam",
    title = "The evolution of the language faculty: Clarifications and implications",
    year = "2005",
    journal = "Cognition",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2005.02.005",
    doi = "10.1016/j.cognition.2005.02.005",
    openalex = "W2104143313",
    references = "doi101017s0094837300004310, doi10108021548331196711707799, doi101111j143903101963tb01161x, doi101111j174966321999tb08538x, doi101126science27452941926, doi101126science29855981569, doi1015159781400820108, doi101537ase188722495, doi1023073679778, doi105860choice295104"
}

@article{doi101016jcognition200504006,
    author = "Jackendoff, Ray and Pinker, Steven",
    title = "The nature of the language faculty and its implications for evolution of language (Reply to Fitch, Hauser, and Chomsky)",
    year = "2005",
    journal = "Cognition",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2005.04.006",
    doi = "10.1016/j.cognition.2005.04.006",
    openalex = "W2145429219",
    references = "doi101016jcognition200502005"
}

@article{doi101017s0140525x05000038,
    author = "Arbib, Michael A.",
    title = "From monkey-like action recognition to human language: An evolutionary framework for neurolinguistics",
    year = "2005",
    journal = "Behavioral and Brain Sciences",
    abstract = {The article analyzes the neural and functional grounding of language skills as well as their emergence in hominid evolution, hypothesizing stages leading from abilities known to exist in monkeys and apes and presumed to exist in our hominid ancestors right through to modern spoken and signed languages. The starting point is the observation that both premotor area F5 in monkeys and Broca's area in humans contain a "mirror system" active for both execution and observation of manual actions, and that F5 and Broca's area are homologous brain regions. This grounded the mirror system hypothesis of Rizzolatti and Arbib (1998) which offers the mirror system for grasping as a key neural "missing link" between the abilities of our nonhuman ancestors of 20 million years ago and modern human language, with manual gestures rather than a system for vocal communication providing the initial seed for this evolutionary process. The present article, however, goes "beyond the mirror" to offer hypotheses on evolutionary changes within and outside the mirror systems which may have occurred to equip Homo sapiens with a language-ready brain. Crucial to the early stages of this progression is the mirror system for grasping and its extension to permit imitation. Imitation is seen as evolving via a so-called simple system such as that found in chimpanzees (which allows imitation of complex "object-oriented" sequences but only as the result of extensive practice) to a so-called complex system found in humans (which allows rapid imitation even of complex sequences, under appropriate conditions) which supports pantomime. This is hypothesized to have provided the substrate for the development of protosign, a combinatorially open repertoire of manual gestures, which then provides the scaffolding for the emergence of protospeech (which thus owes little to nonhuman vocalizations), with protosign and protospeech then developing in an expanding spiral. It is argued that these stages involve biological evolution of both brain and body. By contrast, it is argued that the progression from protosign and protospeech to languages with full-blown syntax and compositional semantics was a historical phenomenon in the development of Homo sapiens, involving few if any further biological changes.},
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1017/s0140525x05000038",
    doi = "10.1017/s0140525x05000038",
    openalex = "W2156256694",
    references = "doi101038nrn1180, doi1023074613021, doi105860choice351500, doi105860choice425260, openalexw227636185"
}

@article{doi10108010635150590950317,
    author = "Atkinson, Quentin D. and Gray, Russell D.",
    title = "Curious Parallels and Curious Connections—Phylogenetic Thinking in Biology and Historical Linguistics",
    year = "2005",
    journal = "Systematic Biology",
    abstract = {In The Descent of Man (1871), Darwin observed "curious parallels" between the processes of biological and linguistic evolution. These parallels mean that evolutionary biologists and historical linguists seek answers to similar questions and face similar problems. As a result, the theory and methodology of the two disciplines have evolved in remarkably similar ways. In addition to Darwin's curious parallels of process, there are a number of equally curious parallels and connections between the development of methods in biology and historical linguistics. Here we briefly review the parallels between biological and linguistic evolution and contrast the historical development of phylogenetic methods in the two disciplines. We then look at a number of recent studies that have applied phylogenetic methods to language data and outline some current problems shared by the two fields.},
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1080/10635150590950317",
    doi = "10.1080/10635150590950317",
    openalex = "W1991156902",
    references = "doi1010079781475729177, doi101038171737a0, doi101093aibsbulletin2214b, doi101093bioinformatics178754, doi101093nar22224673, doi101098rspb19790086, doi1023072485224, doi1023072669574, doi105962bhltitle27468, openalexw2994240441"
}

@article{doi101016jcognition200511009,
    author = "Fitch, W. Tecumseh",
    title = "The biology and evolution of music: A comparative perspective",
    year = "2006",
    journal = "Cognition",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2005.11.009",
    doi = "10.1016/j.cognition.2005.11.009",
    openalex = "W2101758500",
    references = "doi101016jcognition200502005"
}

@article{bickerton2007language,
    author = "Bickerton, Derek",
    title = "Language evolution: A brief guide for linguists",
    year = "2007",
    journal = "Lingua",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2005.02.006",
    doi = "10.1016/j.lingua.2005.02.006",
    number = "3",
    openalex = "W2047432740",
    pages = "510-526",
    volume = "117",
    references = "doi101006jhev20000435, doi101017s0140525x00081061, doi10103835090060, doi10103835097076, doi101126science29855981569, doi1015159781400847266, doi101537ase188722495, doi1023072184681, openalexw2115992100"
}

@article{carstairsmccarthy2007language,
    author = "Carstairs-McCarthy, Andrew",
    title = "Language evolution: What linguists can contribute",
    year = "2007",
    journal = "Lingua",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2005.07.004",
    doi = "10.1016/j.lingua.2005.07.004",
    number = "3",
    openalex = "W2067718351",
    pages = "503-509",
    volume = "117",
    references = "doi101017cbo9780511606441, doi101017s0140525x00081061, doi101126science29855981569, doi1023075601, doi105860choice334795, doi105860choice364312, doi107208chicago97802262209490010001, openalexw1482958624, openalexw1659631989, openalexw2102320628"
}

@article{doi109793elsj19842478,
    author = "Fujita, Koji",
    title = "Facing the Logical Problem of Language Evolution (L. Jenkins, Variation and Universals in Biolinguistics)",
    year = "2007",
    journal = "ENGLISH LINGUISTICS",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.9793/elsj1984.24.78",
    doi = "10.9793/elsj1984.24.78",
    openalex = "W2080618287",
    references = "carstairsmccarthy2007language"
}

@article{doi101017s0140525x08004998,
    author = "Christiansen, Morten H. and Chater, Nick",
    title = "Language as shaped by the brain",
    year = "2008",
    journal = "Behavioral and Brain Sciences",
    abstract = {It is widely assumed that human learning and the structure of human languages are intimately related. This relationship is frequently suggested to derive from a language-specific biological endowment, which encodes universal, but communicatively arbitrary, principles of language structure (a Universal Grammar or UG). How might such a UG have evolved? We argue that UG could not have arisen either by biological adaptation or non-adaptationist genetic processes, resulting in a logical problem of language evolution. Specifically, as the processes of language change are much more rapid than processes of genetic change, language constitutes a "moving target" both over time and across different human populations, and, hence, cannot provide a stable environment to which language genes could have adapted. We conclude that a biologically determined UG is not evolutionarily viable. Instead, the original motivation for UG--the mesh between learners and languages--arises because language has been shaped to fit the human brain, rather than vice versa. Following Darwin, we view language itself as a complex and interdependent "organism," which evolves under selectional pressures from human learning and processing mechanisms. That is, languages themselves are shaped by severe selectional pressure from each generation of language users and learners. This suggests that apparently arbitrary aspects of linguistic structure may result from general learning and processing biases deriving from the structure of thought processes, perceptuo-motor factors, cognitive limitations, and pragmatics.},
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1017/s0140525x08004998",
    doi = "10.1017/s0140525x08004998",
    openalex = "W2126294040",
    references = "doi101038nature04843, doi101038ng2123, doi101086276408, doi101111j155856461991tb04425x, doi101126science1098095, doi101126science1149683, doi1023074613021, doi102307jctvjsf433, doi105860choice370272, doi105860choice396411, doi105860choice451445, doi107551mitpress75510010001, openalexw1515814298, openalexw2145250129, openalexw227636185"
}

@article{doi101073pnas0707835105,
    author = "Kirby, Simon and Cornish, Hannah and Smith, Kenny",
    title = "Cumulative cultural evolution in the laboratory: An experimental approach to the origins of structure in human language",
    year = "2008",
    journal = "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences",
    abstract = "We introduce an experimental paradigm for studying the cumulative cultural evolution of language. In doing so we provide the first experimental validation for the idea that cultural transmission can lead to the appearance of design without a designer. Our experiments involve the iterated learning of artificial languages by human participants. We show that languages transmitted culturally evolve in such a way as to maximize their own transmissibility: over time, the languages in our experiments become easier to learn and increasingly structured. Furthermore, this structure emerges purely as a consequence of the transmission of language over generations, without any intentional design on the part of individual language learners. Previous computational and mathematical models suggest that iterated learning provides an explanation for the structure of human language and link particular aspects of linguistic structure with particular constraints acting on language during its transmission. The experimental work presented here shows that the predictions of these models, and models of cultural evolution more generally, can be tested in the laboratory.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0707835105",
    doi = "10.1073/pnas.0707835105",
    openalex = "W2104563567",
    references = "bickerton2007language"
}

@article{openalexw1492737505,
    author = "Roberge, Paul T.",
    title = "The creation of pidgins as a possible window on language evolution",
    year = "2008",
    journal = "Lot Occasional Series",
    abstract = "For some two decades now, linguists have given serious attention to the idea that restricted systems – inter alia 'modern' pidgin languages – provide a 'window' on certain facets of the emergence of language in the human species. Botha (2003: 197-201, 2006b) has identified a number of difficulties that would have to be overcome in constructing a pidgin window capable of yielding insights into language evolution. The window is still, at best, very much 'under construction,' for it lacks in its present forms various core components: 'Developing these components would require a substantial amount of work of a technical sort' (2006b: 12). But, he concludes, 'a well-constructed pidgin window on language evolution will reward us with insights and perspectives that are incentive enough for facing up to just those difficulties' (2006b: 13). This paper represents an attempt to restart work on the pidgin window construction project. My fundamental position is that the creation of 'modern' pidgin languages does indeed provide such a window on language evolution, though not along the lines that have been proposed to date.",
    openalex = "W1492737505",
    references = "carstairsmccarthy2007language"
}

@article{doi101017s0140525x0999094x,
    author = "Evans, Nicholas and Levinson, Stephen C.",
    title = "The myth of language universals: Language diversity and its importance for cognitive science",
    year = "2009",
    journal = "Behavioral and Brain Sciences",
    abstract = {Talk of linguistic universals has given cognitive scientists the impression that languages are all built to a common pattern. In fact, there are vanishingly few universals of language in the direct sense that all languages exhibit them. Instead, diversity can be found at almost every level of linguistic organization. This fundamentally changes the object of enquiry from a cognitive science perspective. This target article summarizes decades of cross-linguistic work by typologists and descriptive linguists, showing just how few and unprofound the universal characteristics of language are, once we honestly confront the diversity offered to us by the world's 6,000 to 8,000 languages. After surveying the various uses of "universal," we illustrate the ways languages vary radically in sound, meaning, and syntactic organization, and then we examine in more detail the core grammatical machinery of recursion, constituency, and grammatical relations. Although there are significant recurrent patterns in organization, these are better explained as stable engineering solutions satisfying multiple design constraints, reflecting both cultural-historical factors and the constraints of human cognition. Linguistic diversity then becomes the crucial datum for cognitive science: we are the only species with a communication system that is fundamentally variable at all levels. Recognizing the true extent of structural diversity in human language opens up exciting new research directions for cognitive scientists, offering thousands of different natural experiments given by different languages, with new opportunities for dialogue with biological paradigms concerned with change and diversity, and confronting us with the extraordinary plasticity of the highest human skills.},
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1017/s0140525x0999094x",
    doi = "10.1017/s0140525x0999094x",
    openalex = "W2000196122",
    references = "doi101016jcognition200502005, doi101017s0140525x00081061, doi101093oso97801951223430010001, doi101126science27452941926, doi101126science29855981569, doi1011639789004368811003, doi101207s15516709cog14021, doi1015159783110884166, doi1015159783112316009, doi101537ase188722495, doi1023071367778, doi105962bhltitle59991, doi107551mitpress97802625273470010001"
}

@article{doi101111j14679922200900533x,
    author = "Group”, The “Five Graces and Beckner, Clay and Blythe, Richard A. and Bybee, Joan and Christiansen, Morten H. and Croft, William and Ellis, Nick C. and Holland, John H. and Ke, Jinyun and Larsen‐Freeman, Diane and Schoenemann, Tom",
    title = "Language Is a Complex Adaptive System: Position Paper",
    year = "2009",
    journal = "Language Learning",
    abstract = "Language has a fundamentally social function. Processes of human interaction along with domain‐general cognitive processes shape the structure and knowledge of language. Recent research in the cognitive sciences has demonstrated that patterns of use strongly affect how language is acquired, is used, and changes. These processes are not independent of one another but are facets of the same complex adaptive system (CAS). Language as a CAS involves the following key features: The system consists of multiple agents (the speakers in the speech community) interacting with one another. The system is adaptive; that is, speakers’ behavior is based on their past interactions, and current and past interactions together feed forward into future behavior. A speaker's behavior is the consequence of competing factors ranging from perceptual constraints to social motivations. The structures of language emerge from interrelated patterns of experience, social interaction, and cognitive mechanisms. The CAS approach reveals commonalities in many areas of language research, including first and second language acquisition, historical linguistics, psycholinguistics, language evolution, and computational modeling.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9922.2009.00533.x",
    doi = "10.1111/j.1467-9922.2009.00533.x",
    openalex = "W1968826646",
    references = "doi101093oso97801985040920010001, doi1015159780691212920, doi107551mitpress75510010001"
}

@article{doi101126science1166858,
    author = "Gray, Russell D. and Drummond, Alexei J. and Greenhill, Simon J.",
    title = "Language Phylogenies Reveal Expansion Pulses and Pauses in Pacific Settlement",
    year = "2009",
    journal = "Science",
    abstract = {Debates about human prehistory often center on the role that population expansions play in shaping biological and cultural diversity. Hypotheses on the origin of the Austronesian settlers of the Pacific are divided between a recent "pulse-pause" expansion from Taiwan and an older "slow-boat" diffusion from Wallacea. We used lexical data and Bayesian phylogenetic methods to construct a phylogeny of 400 languages. In agreement with the pulse-pause scenario, the language trees place the Austronesian origin in Taiwan approximately 5230 years ago and reveal a series of settlement pauses and expansion pulses linked to technological and social innovations. These results are robust to assumptions about the rooting and calibration of the trees and demonstrate the combined power of linguistic scholarship, database technologies, and computational phylogenetic methods for resolving questions about human prehistory.},
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1166858",
    doi = "10.1126/science.1166858",
    openalex = "W1969113544",
    references = "doi10103835016575"
}

@book{doi101017cbo9780511817779,
    author = "Fitch, W. Tecumseh",
    title = "The Evolution of Language",
    year = "2010",
    booktitle = "Cambridge University Press eBooks",
    abstract = "Language, more than anything else, is what makes us human. It appears that no communication system of equivalent power exists elsewhere in the animal kingdom. Any normal human child will learn a language based on rather sparse data in the surrounding world, while even the brightest chimpanzee, exposed to the same environment, will not. Why not? How, and why, did language evolve in our species and not in others? Since Darwin's theory of evolution, questions about the origin of language have generated a rapidly-growing scientific literature, stretched across a number of disciplines, much of it directed at specialist audiences. The diversity of perspectives - from linguistics, anthropology, speech science, genetics, neuroscience and evolutionary biology - can be bewildering. Tecumseh Fitch cuts through this vast literature, bringing together its most important insights to explore one of the biggest unsolved puzzles of human history.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511817779",
    doi = "10.1017/cbo9780511817779",
    openalex = "W1546150263",
    references = "bickerton2007language, doi101002ajpa10019abs, doi101002sici10968644199725201aidajpa830co26, doi101006jhev20000435, doi101007978146122784737, doi1010160022519364900384, doi1010160047248487900224, doi101016jcognition200502005, doi101016jtree200606005, doi101016s0047248484800792, doi101016s0065345408601461, doi101016s0070215321x00026, doi101016s0165017399000120, doi101017s0140525x00047695, doi1010370033295x1012343, doi10103711059000, doi101038115195a0, doi10103831383, doi10103831635, doi101038347066a0, doi101038361129a0, doi101038380037a0, doi101038385333a0, doi101038416816a, doi10103841710, doi101038nature03052, doi101038nature03102, doi101038nature04047, doi101038nature06967, doi101038nrn1180, doi101073pnas0608062103, doi101073pnas062041299, doi101073pnas101086398, doi101073pnas6341088, doi101073pnas7982554, doi101086300083, doi101086346135, doi101086413055, doi101098rstb19520012, doi101111j109636421995tb00119x, doi101111j146979981991tb04794x, doi101111j155856461980tb04817x, doi101126science1067575, doi101126science1078004, doi101126science1098410, doi101126science1109727, doi101126science167391486, doi101126science2114480341, doi101126science2204594268, doi101126science2740904, doi101126science7466396, doi1011639789004368811003, doi1011751520046919630200130dnf20co2, doi1012880000553719500500000010, doi101371journalpbio0030245, doi1023071423235, doi1023073324560, doi1023074444260, doi105860choice370272, doi105860choice395182, doi105860choice396411, doi105860choice435875, doi105860choice475652, doi105962bhltitle159141, doi105962bhltitle17416, doi105962bhltitle27468, falk1983cerebral, johanson1979a, openalexw1593551567, openalexw2405313519"
}

@article{doi101371journalpone0008559,
    author = "Lupyan, Gary and Dale, Rick",
    title = "Language Structure Is Partly Determined by Social Structure",
    year = "2010",
    journal = "PLoS ONE",
    abstract = "BACKGROUND: Languages differ greatly both in their syntactic and morphological systems and in the social environments in which they exist. We challenge the view that language grammars are unrelated to social environments in which they are learned and used. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We conducted a statistical analysis of >2,000 languages using a combination of demographic sources and the World Atlas of Language Structures--a database of structural language properties. We found strong relationships between linguistic factors related to morphological complexity, and demographic/socio-historical factors such as the number of language users, geographic spread, and degree of language contact. The analyses suggest that languages spoken by large groups have simpler inflectional morphology than languages spoken by smaller groups as measured on a variety of factors such as case systems and complexity of conjugations. Additionally, languages spoken by large groups are much more likely to use lexical strategies in place of inflectional morphology to encode evidentiality, negation, aspect, and possession. Our findings indicate that just as biological organisms are shaped by ecological niches, language structures appear to adapt to the environment (niche) in which they are being learned and used. As adults learn a language, features that are difficult for them to acquire, are less likely to be passed on to subsequent learners. Languages used for communication in large groups that include adult learners appear to have been subjected to such selection. Conversely, the morphological complexity common to languages used in small groups increases redundancy which may facilitate language learning by infants. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: We hypothesize that language structures are subjected to different evolutionary pressures in different social environments. Just as biological organisms are shaped by ecological niches, language structures appear to adapt to the environment (niche) in which they are being learned and used. The proposed Linguistic Niche Hypothesis has implications for answering the broad question of why languages differ in the way they do and makes empirical predictions regarding language acquisition capacities of children versus adults.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0008559",
    doi = "10.1371/journal.pone.0008559",
    openalex = "W2029447880",
    references = "doi101017s0140525x0999094x"
}

@article{doi101126science1210879,
    author = "Laland, Kevin N. and Sterelny, Kim and Odling‐Smee, John and Hoppitt, William and Uller, Tobias",
    title = "Cause and Effect in Biology Revisited: Is Mayr’s Proximate-Ultimate Dichotomy Still Useful?",
    year = "2011",
    journal = "Science",
    abstract = "Fifty years ago, Ernst Mayr published a hugely influential paper on the nature of causation in biology, in which he distinguished between proximate and ultimate causes. Mayr equated proximate causation with immediate factors (for example, physiology) and ultimate causation with evolutionary explanations (for example, natural selection). He argued that proximate and ultimate causes addressed different questions and were not alternatives. Mayr's account of causation remains widely accepted today, with both positive and negative ramifications. Several current debates in biology (for example, over evolution and development, niche construction, cooperation, and the evolution of language) are linked by a common axis of acceptance/rejection of Mayr's model of causation. We argue that Mayr's formulation has acted to stabilize the dominant evolutionary paradigm against change but may now hamper progress in the biological sciences.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1210879",
    doi = "10.1126/science.1210879",
    openalex = "W1964687630",
    references = "doi101016jevolhumbehav201008001, doi101017cbo9781139164856, doi101017s0140525x0999094x, doi101098rstb20090012, openalexw2591687711"
}

@article{doi101016jtics201201007,
    author = "Levinson, Stephen C. and Gray, Russell D.",
    title = "Tools from evolutionary biology shed new light on the diversification of languages",
    year = "2012",
    journal = "Trends in Cognitive Sciences",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2012.01.007",
    doi = "10.1016/j.tics.2012.01.007",
    openalex = "W2108162843",
    references = "doi101371journalpone0025195"
}

@article{doi101098rstb20120116,
    author = "Sterelny, Kim",
    title = "Language, gesture, skill: the co-evolutionary foundations of language",
    year = "2012",
    journal = "Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences",
    abstract = "This paper defends a gestural origins hypothesis about the evolution of enhanced communication and language in the hominin lineage. The paper shows that we can develop an incremental model of language evolution on that hypothesis, but not if we suppose that language originated in an expansion of great ape vocalization. On the basis of the gestural origins hypothesis, the paper then advances solutions to four classic problems about the evolution of language: (i) why did language evolve only in the hominin lineage? (ii) why is language use an evolutionarily stable form of informational cooperation, despite the fact that hominins have diverging evolutionary interests? (iii) how did stimulus independent symbols emerge? (iv) what were the origins of complex, syntactically organized symbols? The paper concludes by confronting two challenges: those of testability and of explaining the gesture-to-speech transition; crucial issues for any gestural origins hypothesis.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2012.0116",
    doi = "10.1098/rstb.2012.0116",
    openalex = "W2161799592",
    references = "bickerton2007language"
}

@article{doi101016jtics201212002,
    author = "Berwick, Robert C. and Friederici, Angela D. and Chomsky, Noam and Bolhuis, Johan J.",
    title = "Evolution, brain, and the nature of language",
    year = "2013",
    journal = "Trends in Cognitive Sciences",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2012.12.002",
    doi = "10.1016/j.tics.2012.12.002",
    openalex = "W2102506398",
    references = "doi101006nimg20021136, doi101016jcortex201110001, doi101038nrn2113, doi101038nrn2277, doi101073pnas942614792, doi101093cercorbhp055, doi101126science1199295, doi101152physrev000062011, doi101537ase188722495, doi105962bhltitle2092, doi107551mitpress97802625273470010001"
}

@article{doi101073pnas1218726110,
    author = "Pagel, Mark and Atkinson, Quentin D. and Calude, Andreea S. and Meade, Andrew",
    title = "Ultraconserved words point to deep language ancestry across Eurasia",
    year = "2013",
    journal = "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences",
    abstract = {The search for ever deeper relationships among the World's languages is bedeviled by the fact that most words evolve too rapidly to preserve evidence of their ancestry beyond 5,000 to 9,000 y. On the other hand, quantitative modeling indicates that some "ultraconserved" words exist that might be used to find evidence for deep linguistic relationships beyond that time barrier. Here we use a statistical model, which takes into account the frequency with which words are used in common everyday speech, to predict the existence of a set of such highly conserved words among seven language families of Eurasia postulated to form a linguistic superfamily that evolved from a common ancestor around 15,000 y ago. We derive a dated phylogenetic tree of this proposed superfamily with a time-depth of \textasciitilde 14,450 y, implying that some frequently used words have been retained in related forms since the end of the last ice age. Words used more than once per 1,000 in everyday speech were 7- to 10-times more likely to show deep ancestry on this tree. Our results suggest a remarkable fidelity in the transmission of some words and give theoretical justification to the search for features of language that might be preserved across wide spans of time and geography.},
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1218726110",
    doi = "10.1073/pnas.1218726110",
    openalex = "W2052954051",
    references = "doi101007bf00160154, doi101038nature02029, doi101038nature06176, doi101038nature08365, doi101086464321, doi101126science1139940, doi1015159781503621336, doi1015159783110218442, doi102307416962"
}

@article{doi103389fpsyg201300397,
    author = "Dediu, Dan and Levinson, Stephen C.",
    title = "On the antiquity of language: the reinterpretation of Neandertal linguistic capacities and its consequences",
    year = "2013",
    journal = "Frontiers in Psychology",
    abstract = {It is usually assumed that modern language is a recent phenomenon, coinciding with the emergence of modern humans themselves. Many assume as well that this is the result of a single, sudden mutation giving rise to the full "modern package." However, we argue here that recognizably modern language is likely an ancient feature of our genus pre-dating at least the common ancestor of modern humans and Neandertals about half a million years ago. To this end, we adduce a broad range of evidence from linguistics, genetics, paleontology, and archaeology clearly suggesting that Neandertals shared with us something like modern speech and language. This reassessment of the antiquity of modern language, from the usually quoted 50,000-100,000 years to half a million years, has profound consequences for our understanding of our own evolution in general and especially for the sciences of speech and language. As such, it argues against a saltationist scenario for the evolution of language, and toward a gradual process of culture-gene co-evolution extending to the present day. Another consequence is that the present-day linguistic diversity might better reflect the properties of the design space for language and not just the vagaries of history, and could also contain traces of the languages spoken by other human forms such as the Neandertals.},
    url = "https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00397",
    doi = "10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00397",
    openalex = "W2115969311",
    references = "doi101006jhev20000435, doi101016jtree200502010, doi101017s0140525x00032325, doi101017s0140525x00081061, doi101017s0140525x0999094x, doi10103710039000, doi101126science1188021, doi101126science29855981569, doi101537ase188722495, doi107551mitpress75510010001"
}

@article{doi101016jcub201410064,
    author = "Hruschka, Daniel J. and Branford, Simon and Smith, Eric D. and Wilkins, Jon F. and Meade, Andrew and Pagel, Mark and Bhattacharya, Tanmoy",
    title = "Detecting Regular Sound Changes in Linguistics as Events of Concerted Evolution",
    year = "2014",
    journal = "Current Biology",
    abstract = "We demonstrate that a model with no prior knowledge of complex concerted or regular changes can nevertheless infer the historical timings and genealogical placements of events of concerted change from the signals left in contemporary data. Our model can be applied wherever discrete elements—such as genes, words, cultural trends, technologies, or morphological traits—can change in parallel within an organism or other evolving group.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2014.10.064",
    doi = "10.1016/j.cub.2014.10.064",
    openalex = "W2044352052"
}

@article{doi101098rstb20130292,
    author = "Vigliocco, Gabriella and Perniss, Pamela and Vinson, David",
    title = "Language as a multimodal phenomenon: implications for language learning, processing and evolution",
    year = "2014",
    journal = "Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences",
    abstract = "Our understanding of the cognitive and neural underpinnings of language has traditionally been firmly based on spoken Indo-European languages and on language studied as speech or text. However, in face-to-face communication, language is multimodal: speech signals are invariably accompanied by visual information on the face and in manual gestures, and sign languages deploy multiple channels (hands, face and body) in utterance construction. Moreover, the narrow focus on spoken Indo-European languages has entrenched the assumption that language is comprised wholly by an arbitrary system of symbols and rules. However, iconicity (i.e. resemblance between aspects of communicative form and meaning) is also present: speakers use iconic gestures when they speak; many non-Indo-European spoken languages exhibit a substantial amount of iconicity in word forms and, finally, iconicity is the norm, rather than the exception in sign languages. This introduction provides the motivation for taking a multimodal approach to the study of language learning, processing and evolution, and discusses the broad implications of shifting our current dominant approaches and assumptions to encompass multimodal expression in both signed and spoken languages.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2013.0292",
    doi = "10.1098/rstb.2013.0292",
    openalex = "W2130643333",
    references = "doi101098rstb20130300, doi101098rstb20130302, doi101371journalpone0089680"
}

@article{doi101098rstb20130298,
    author = "Imai, Mutsumi and Kita, Sotaro",
    title = "The sound symbolism bootstrapping hypothesis for language acquisition and language evolution",
    year = "2014",
    journal = "Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences",
    abstract = "Sound symbolism is a non-arbitrary relationship between speech sounds and meaning. We review evidence that, contrary to the traditional view in linguistics, sound symbolism is an important design feature of language, which affects online processing of language, and most importantly, language acquisition. We propose the sound symbolism bootstrapping hypothesis, claiming that (i) pre-verbal infants are sensitive to sound symbolism, due to a biologically endowed ability to map and integrate multi-modal input, (ii) sound symbolism helps infants gain referential insight for speech sounds, (iii) sound symbolism helps infants and toddlers associate speech sounds with their referents to establish a lexical representation and (iv) sound symbolism helps toddlers learn words by allowing them to focus on referents embedded in a complex scene, alleviating Quine's problem. We further explore the possibility that sound symbolism is deeply related to language evolution, drawing the parallel between historical development of language across generations and ontogenetic development within individuals. Finally, we suggest that sound symbolism bootstrapping is a part of a more general phenomenon of bootstrapping by means of iconic representations, drawing on similarities and close behavioural links between sound symbolism and speech-accompanying iconic gesture.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2013.0298",
    doi = "10.1098/rstb.2013.0298",
    openalex = "W2010523604",
    references = "doi101098rstb20130300"
}

@article{doi101098rstb20130300,
    author = "Perniss, Pamela and Vigliocco, Gabriella",
    title = "The bridge of iconicity: from a world of experience to the experience of language",
    year = "2014",
    journal = "Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences",
    abstract = "Iconicity, a resemblance between properties of linguistic form (both in spoken and signed languages) and meaning, has traditionally been considered to be a marginal, irrelevant phenomenon for our understanding of language processing, development and evolution. Rather, the arbitrary and symbolic nature of language has long been taken as a design feature of the human linguistic system. In this paper, we propose an alternative framework in which iconicity in face-to-face communication (spoken and signed) is a powerful vehicle for bridging between language and human sensori-motor experience, and, as such, iconicity provides a key to understanding language evolution, development and processing. In language evolution, iconicity might have played a key role in establishing displacement (the ability of language to refer beyond what is immediately present), which is core to what language does; in ontogenesis, iconicity might play a critical role in supporting referentiality (learning to map linguistic labels to objects, events, etc., in the world), which is core to vocabulary development. Finally, in language processing, iconicity could provide a mechanism to account for how language comes to be embodied (grounded in our sensory and motor systems), which is core to meaningful communication.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2013.0300",
    doi = "10.1098/rstb.2013.0300",
    openalex = "W2102124524",
    references = "doi101016s0079742121x00023, doi101016s0166223698012600, doi101017cbo9780511817779, doi101017s0140525x99002149, doi101038264746a0, doi10108002643290442000310, doi101098rstb20130302, doi101126science29855981569, doi103389fpsyg201300397, doi105860choice302492, doi107551mitpress75510010001, doi107551mitpress97802625273470010001, openalexw1980491396"
}

@article{doi103389fpsyg201400401,
    author = "Hauser, Michael A. and Yang, Charles and Berwick, Robert C. and Tattersall, Ian and Ryan, Michael J. and Watumull, Jeffrey and Chomsky, Noam and Lewontin, Richard C",
    title = "The mystery of language evolution",
    year = "2014",
    journal = "Frontiers in Psychology",
    abstract = "Understanding the evolution of language requires evidence regarding origins and processes that led to change. In the last 40 years, there has been an explosion of research on this problem as well as a sense that considerable progress has been made. We argue instead that the richness of ideas is accompanied by a poverty of evidence, with essentially no explanation of how and why our linguistic computations and representations evolved. We show that, to date, (1) studies of nonhuman animals provide virtually no relevant parallels to human linguistic communication, and none to the underlying biological capacity; (2) the fossil and archaeological evidence does not inform our understanding of the computations and representations of our earliest ancestors, leaving details of origins and selective pressure unresolved; (3) our understanding of the genetics of language is so impoverished that there is little hope of connecting genes to linguistic processes any time soon; (4) all modeling attempts have made unfounded assumptions, and have provided no empirical tests, thus leaving any insights into language's origins unverifiable. Based on the current state of evidence, we submit that the most fundamental questions about the origins and evolution of our linguistic capacity remain as mysterious as ever, with considerable uncertainty about the discovery of either relevant or conclusive evidence that can adjudicate among the many open hypotheses. We conclude by presenting some suggestions about possible paths forward.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00401",
    doi = "10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00401",
    openalex = "W2134533669",
    references = "doi101017cbo9780511817779, doi101017s0140525x00081061, doi10108021548331196711707799, doi101093oso97801951152600010001, doi101126science1090005, doi101126science29855981569, doi101146annurevneuro221567, doi1015159783110884166, doi103389fpsyg201300397, doi104159harvard9780674418776, openalexw1597993529, openalexw1722351164"
}

@book{doi1043249781315794013,
    author = "Bowern, Claire and Evans, Bethwyn",
    title = "The Routledge Handbook of Historical Linguistics",
    year = "2014",
    abstract = "Table of Contents Contributors Acknowledgements Editors' Introduction: Foundations of the new historical linguistics 1 Claire Bowern and Bethwyn Evans Part 1 Overviews * Lineage and the constructive imagination: the birth of historical linguistics Roger Lass * New perspectives in historical linguistics Paul Kiparsky * Compositionality and change Nigel Vincent Part 2 Methods and models * The Comparative Method Michael Weiss * The Comparative Method: theoretical issues Mark Hale * Trees, waves and linkages: models of language diversification Alexandre Francois * Language phylogenies Michael Dunn * Diachronic stability and typology Soren Wichmann Part 3 Language change * The Sound change Andrew Garrett * Phonological changes Silke Hamann * Morphological change Stephen Anderson * Morphological reconstruction Harold Koch * Functional syntax and language change Zigmunt Frajzyngier * Generative syntax and language change Elly van Gelderen * Syntax and Syntactic reconstruction Johanna Barddal * Lexical semantic change and semantic reconstruction Matthias Urban * Formal semantics/pragmatics and language change Ashwini Deo * Discourse Alexandra D'Arcy * Etymology Robert Mailhammer * Sign languages in their historical context Susan D. Fisher * Language acquisition and language change James N. Stanford * Social dimensions of language change Lev Michael * Language use, cognitive processes and linguistic change Joan Bybee and Clayton Beckner * Contact-induced language change Christopher Lucas * Language attrition and language change Jane Simpson Part 4 Interfaces 27 Demographic correlates of language diversity Simon J. Greenhill 28 Historical linguistics and socio-cultural reconstruction Patience Epps 29 Prehistory through language and archaeology Paul Heggarty 30 Historical linguistics and molecular anthropology Brigitte Pakendorf Part 5 Regional Summaries * Indo-European: methods and problems Benjamin W. Fortson IV * Austronesian Ritsuko Kikusawa * The Austro-Asiatic language phylum: a typology of phonological restructuring Paul Sidwell * Pama-Nyungan Luisa Miceli * The Pacific Northwest lingusitic area: historical perspectives Sarah G. Thomason",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315794013",
    doi = "10.4324/9781315794013",
    openalex = "W223988731",
    references = "doi101098rstb20100162, doi101353lan20120081"
}

@article{bowern2015linguistics,
    author = "Bowern, Claire",
    title = "Linguistics: Evolution and Language Change",
    year = "2015",
    journal = "Current Biology",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2014.11.053",
    doi = "10.1016/j.cub.2014.11.053",
    number = "1",
    openalex = "W2094166165",
    pages = "R41-R43",
    volume = "25",
    references = "doi101016jcub201410064, doi101038nature09923, doi101126science1149683, doi101126science1166858, doi101159000261913, doi101353lan20120081, doi101537ase188722495, doi102307414641, doi1043249781315794013, doi105962bhltitle121292"
}

@article{doi101017s0140525x1500031x,
    author = "Christiansen, Morten H. and Chater, Nick",
    title = "The Now-or-Never bottleneck: A fundamental constraint on language",
    year = "2015",
    journal = "Behavioral and Brain Sciences",
    abstract = {Memory is fleeting. New material rapidly obliterates previous material. How, then, can the brain deal successfully with the continual deluge of linguistic input? We argue that, to deal with this "Now-or-Never" bottleneck, the brain must compress and recode linguistic input as rapidly as possible. This observation has strong implications for the nature of language processing: (1) the language system must "eagerly" recode and compress linguistic input; (2) as the bottleneck recurs at each new representational level, the language system must build a multilevel linguistic representation; and (3) the language system must deploy all available information predictively to ensure that local linguistic ambiguities are dealt with "Right-First-Time"; once the original input is lost, there is no way for the language system to recover. This is "Chunk-and-Pass" processing. Similarly, language learning must also occur in the here and now, which implies that language acquisition is learning to process, rather than inducing, a grammar. Moreover, this perspective provides a cognitive foundation for grammaticalization and other aspects of language change. Chunk-and-Pass processing also helps explain a variety of core properties of language, including its multilevel representational structure and duality of patterning. This approach promises to create a direct relationship between psycholinguistics and linguistic theory. More generally, we outline a framework within which to integrate often disconnected inquiries into language processing, language acquisition, and language change and evolution.},
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1017/s0140525x1500031x",
    doi = "10.1017/s0140525x1500031x",
    openalex = "W2064304610",
    references = "doi101017s0140525x0999094x, doi101093acprofoso97801992685110010001"
}

@article{doi101093jolelzv004,
    author = "Everett, Caleb and Blasí, Damián E. and Roberts, Seán G.",
    title = "Language evolution and climate: the case of desiccation and tone",
    year = "2016",
    journal = "Journal of Language Evolution",
    abstract = "Abstract We make the case that, contra standard assumption in linguistic theory, the sound systems of human languages are adapted to their environment. While not conclusive, this plausible case rests on several points discussed in this work: First, human behavior is generally adaptive and the assumption that this characteristic does not extend to linguistic structure is empirically unsubstantiated. Second, animal communication systems are well known to be adaptive within species across a variety of phyla and taxa. Third, research in laryngology demonstrates clearly that ambient desiccation impacts the performance of the human vocal cords. The latter point motivates a clear, testable hypothesis with respect to the synchronic global distribution of language types. Fourth, this hypothesis is supported in our own previous work, and here we discuss new approaches being developed to further explore the hypothesis. We conclude by suggesting that the time has come to more substantively examine the possibility that linguistic sound systems are adapted to their physical ecology.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1093/jole/lzv004",
    doi = "10.1093/jole/lzv004",
    openalex = "W2337026175",
    references = "doi101002sici10968644199602992345aidajpa930co2x, doi10100797836427878291, doi101016s0003347205806001, doi101017s0140525x00032325, doi101073pnas1100290108, doi101075tsl45, doi101080146976882013829244, doi101086282971, doi103389fpsyg201400401, doi1043249781410613349, doi107208chicago97802265805930010001, openalexw2140231764"
}

@article{doi101093jolelzw002,
    author = "Hammarström, Harald",
    title = "Linguistic diversity and language evolution",
    year = "2016",
    journal = "Journal of Language Evolution",
    abstract = "What would your ideas about language evolution be if there was only one language left on earth? Fortunately, our investigation need not be that impoverished. In the present article, we survey the state of knowledge regarding the kinds of language found among humans, the language inventory, population sizes, time depth, grammatical variation, and other relevant issues that a theory of language evolution should minimally take into account.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1093/jole/lzw002",
    doi = "10.1093/jole/lzw002",
    openalex = "W2273241057",
    references = "doi101073pnas1218726110"
}

@article{doi101371journalpone0158391,
    author = "Kirby, Kathryn R. and Gray, Russell D. and Greenhill, Simon J. and Jordan, Fiona M. and Gomes‐Ng, Stephanie and Bibiko, Hans-Jörg and Blasí, Damián E. and Botero, Carlos A. and Bowern, Claire and Ember, Carol R. and Leehr, Dan and Low, Bobbi S. and McCarter, Joe and Divale, William and Gavin, Michael C.",
    title = "D-PLACE: A Global Database of Cultural, Linguistic and Environmental Diversity",
    year = "2016",
    journal = "PLoS ONE",
    abstract = "From the foods we eat and the houses we construct, to our religious practices and political organization, to who we can marry and the types of games we teach our children, the diversity of cultural practices in the world is astounding. Yet, our ability to visualize and understand this diversity is limited by the ways it has been documented and shared: on a culture-by-culture basis, in locally-told stories or difficult-to-access repositories. In this paper we introduce D-PLACE, the Database of Places, Language, Culture, and Environment. This expandable and open-access database (accessible at https://d-place.org) brings together a dispersed corpus of information on the geography, language, culture, and environment of over 1400 human societies. We aim to enable researchers to investigate the extent to which patterns in cultural diversity are shaped by different forces, including shared history, demographics, migration/diffusion, cultural innovations, and environmental and ecological conditions. We detail how D-PLACE helps to overcome four common barriers to understanding these forces: i) location of relevant cultural data, (ii) linking data from distinct sources using diverse ethnonyms, (iii) variable time and place foci for data, and (iv) spatial and historical dependencies among cultural groups that present challenges for analysis. D-PLACE facilitates the visualisation of relationships among cultural groups and between people and their environments, with results downloadable as tables, on a map, or on a linguistic tree. We also describe how D-PLACE can be used for exploratory, predictive, and evolutionary analyses of cultural diversity by a range of users, from members of the worldwide public interested in contrasting their own cultural practices with those of other societies, to researchers using large-scale computational phylogenetic analyses to study cultural evolution. In summary, we hope that D-PLACE will enable new lines of investigation into the major drivers of cultural change and global patterns of cultural diversity.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0158391",
    doi = "10.1371/journal.pone.0158391",
    openalex = "W2460278899",
    references = "doi101353lan20120081"
}

@article{doi101002wcs1444,
    author = "Boyd, Brian",
    title = "The evolution of stories: from mimesis to language, from fact to fiction",
    year = "2017",
    journal = "Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Cognitive Science",
    abstract = "Why a species as successful as Homo sapiens should spend so much time in fiction, in telling one another stories that neither side believes, at first seems an evolutionary riddle. Because of the advantages of tracking and recombining true information, capacities for event comprehension, memory, imagination, and communication evolved in a range of animal species-yet even chimpanzees cannot communicate beyond the here and now. By Homo erectus, our forebears had reached an increasing dependence on one another, not least in sharing information in mimetic, prelinguistic ways. As Daniel Dor shows, the pressure to pool ever more information, even beyond currently shared experience, led to the invention of language. Language in turn swiftly unlocked efficient forms of narrative, allowing early humans to learn much more about their kind than they could experience at first hand, so that they could cooperate and compete better through understanding one another more fully. This changed the payoff of sociality for individuals and groups. But true narrative was still limited to what had already happened. Once the strong existing predisposition to play combined with existing capacities for event comprehension, memory, imagination, language, and narrative, we could begin to invent fiction, and to explore the full range of human possibilities in concentrated, engaging, memorable forms. First language, then narrative, then fiction, created niches that altered selection pressures, and made us ever more deeply dependent on knowing more about our kind and our risks and opportunities than we could discover through direct experience. WIREs Cogn Sci 2018, 9:e1444. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1444 This article is categorized under: Cognitive Biology > Evolutionary Roots of Cognition Linguistics > Evolution of Language Neuroscience > Cognition.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1002/wcs.1444",
    doi = "10.1002/wcs.1444",
    openalex = "W2618503787",
    references = "doi101073pnas1404212111, openalexw2889936086"
}

@article{doi101007s105390179594y,
    author = "Bromham, Lindell",
    title = "Curiously the same: swapping tools between linguistics and evolutionary biology",
    year = "2017",
    journal = "Biology \& Philosophy",
    abstract = "One of the major benefits of interdisciplinary research is the chance to swap tools between fields, to save having to reinvent the wheel. The fields of language evolution and evolutionary biology have been swapping tools for centuries to the enrichment of both. Here I will discuss three categories of tool swapping: (1) conceptual tools, where analogies are drawn between hypotheses, patterns or processes, so that one field can take advantage of the path cut through the intellectual jungle by the other; (2) theoretical tools, where the machinery developed to process the data in one field is adapted to be applied to the data of the other; and (3) analytical tools, where common problems encountered in both fields can be solved using useful tricks developed by one or the other. I will argue that conceptual tools borrowed from linguistics contributed to the Darwinian revolution in biology; that theoretical tools of evolutionary change can in some cases be applied to both genetic and linguistic data without having to assume the underlying evolutionary processes are exactly the same; and that there are practical problems that have long been recognised in historical linguistics that may be solved by borrowing some useful analytical tools from evolutionary biology.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-017-9594-y",
    doi = "10.1007/s10539-017-9594-y",
    openalex = "W2754262792",
    references = "doi101007s1206401301881, doi101073pnas1218726110, doi103389fpsyg201400401"
}

@article{doi101073pnas1700388114,
    author = "Greenhill, Simon J. and Wu, Chieh‐Hsi and Hua, Xia and Dunn, Michael and Levinson, Stephen C. and Gray, Russell D.",
    title = "Evolutionary dynamics of language systems",
    year = "2017",
    journal = "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences",
    abstract = "Understanding how and why language subsystems differ in their evolutionary dynamics is a fundamental question for historical and comparative linguistics. One key dynamic is the rate of language change. While it is commonly thought that the rapid rate of change hampers the reconstruction of deep language relationships beyond 6,000-10,000 y, there are suggestions that grammatical structures might retain more signal over time than other subsystems, such as basic vocabulary. In this study, we use a Dirichlet process mixture model to infer the rates of change in lexical and grammatical data from 81 Austronesian languages. We show that, on average, most grammatical features actually change faster than items of basic vocabulary. The grammatical data show less schismogenesis, higher rates of homoplasy, and more bursts of contact-induced change than the basic vocabulary data. However, there is a core of grammatical and lexical features that are highly stable. These findings suggest that different subsystems of language have differing dynamics and that careful, nuanced models of language change will be needed to extract deeper signal from the noise of parallel evolution, areal readaptation, and contact.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1700388114",
    doi = "10.1073/pnas.1700388114",
    openalex = "W2762143087",
    references = "doi101073pnas1218726110, doi101098rstb20100162"
}

@article{doi103758s1342301712365,
    author = "Fitch, W. Tecumseh",
    title = "Empirical approaches to the study of language evolution",
    year = "2017",
    journal = "Psychonomic Bulletin \& Review",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-017-1236-5",
    doi = "10.3758/s13423-017-1236-5",
    openalex = "W2585535166",
    references = "doi1010160022249683900305, doi101017s0094837300004310, doi101017s0140525x00076512, doi101126science29855981569, doi1011639789004368811003, doi1015159783112316009, doi101537ase188722495, doi103389fpsyg201300397, doi103389fpsyg201400401, doi107551mitpress97802625146200010001, doi107551mitpress97802625273470010001, openalexw1969787028, openalexw2902019039"
}

@article{doi101126scienceaax0287,
    author = "Jarvis, Erich D.",
    title = "Evolution of vocal learning and spoken language",
    year = "2019",
    journal = "Science",
    abstract = "Although language, and therefore spoken language or speech, is often considered unique to humans, the past several decades have seen a surge in nonhuman animal studies that inform us about human spoken language. Here, I present a modern, evolution-based synthesis of these studies, from behavioral to molecular levels of analyses. Among the key concepts drawn are that components of spoken language are continuous between species, and that the vocal learning component is the most specialized and rarest and evolved by brain pathway duplication from an ancient motor learning pathway. These concepts have important implications for understanding brain mechanisms and disorders of spoken language.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aax0287",
    doi = "10.1126/science.aax0287",
    openalex = "W2978623259",
    references = "doi101016jneubiorev201703014, doi103758s1342301712365"
}

@article{doi101038s41598019572358,
    author = "de Boer, Bart and Thompson, Bill and Ravignani, Andrea and Boeckx, Cédric",
    title = "Evolutionary Dynamics Do Not Motivate a Single-Mutant Theory of Human Language",
    year = "2020",
    journal = "Scientific Reports",
    abstract = "One of the most controversial hypotheses in cognitive science is the Chomskyan evolutionary conjecture that language arose instantaneously in humans through a single mutation. Here we analyze the evolutionary dynamics implied by this hypothesis, which has never been formalized before. The hypothesis supposes the emergence and fixation of a single mutant (capable of the syntactic operation Merge) during a narrow historical window as a result of frequency-independent selection under a huge fitness advantage in a population of an effective size no larger than \textasciitilde 15 000 individuals. We examine this proposal by combining diffusion analysis and extreme value theory to derive a probabilistic formulation of its dynamics. We find that although a macro-mutation is much more likely to go to fixation if it occurs, it is much more unlikely a priori than multiple mutations with smaller fitness effects. The most likely scenario is therefore one where a medium number of mutations with medium fitness effects accumulate. This precise analysis of the probability of mutations occurring and going to fixation has not been done previously in the context of the evolution of language. Our results cast doubt on any suggestion that evolutionary reasoning provides an independent rationale for a single-mutant theory of language.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-57235-8",
    doi = "10.1038/s41598-019-57235-8",
    openalex = "W2999564659",
    references = "doi101016jcobeha201801001"
}

@article{doi101093jolelzaa001,
    author = "Roberts, Seán G. and Killin, Anton and Deb, Angarika and Sheard, Catherine and Greenhill, Simon J. and Sinnemäki, Kaius and Segovia‐Martín, José and Nölle, Jonas and Berdičevskis, Aleksandrs and Humphreys-Balkwill, Archie and Little, Hannah and Opie, Christopher and Jacques, Guillaume and Bromham, Lindell and Tinits, Peeter and Ross, Robert M. and Lee, Sean and Gasser, Emily and Calladine, Jasmine and Spike, Matthew and Mann, Stephen Francis and Shcherbakova, Olena and Singer, Ruth and Zhang, Shuya and Benítez‐Burraco, Antonio and Kliesch, Christian and Thomas-Colquhoun, Ewan and Skirgård, Hedvig and Tamariz, Mónica and Passmore, Sam and Pellard, Thomas and Jordan, Fiona M.",
    title = "CHIELD: the causal hypotheses in evolutionary linguistics database",
    year = "2020",
    journal = "Journal of Language Evolution",
    abstract = "Abstract Language is one of the most complex of human traits. There are many hypotheses about how it originated, what factors shaped its diversity, and what ongoing processes drive how it changes. We present the Causal Hypotheses in Evolutionary Linguistics Database (CHIELD, https://chield.excd.org/), a tool for expressing, exploring, and evaluating hypotheses. It allows researchers to integrate multiple theories into a coherent narrative, helping to design future research. We present design goals, a formal specification, and an implementation for this database. Source code is freely available for other fields to take advantage of this tool. Some initial results are presented, including identifying conflicts in theories about gossip and ritual, comparing hypotheses relating population size and morphological complexity, and an author relation network.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1093/jole/lzaa001",
    doi = "10.1093/jole/lzaa001",
    openalex = "W2797849812",
    references = "bowern2015linguistics"
}

@article{doi10116322105832bja10005,
    author = "Nölle, Jonas and Hartmann, Stefan and Tinits, Peeter",
    title = "Language evolution research in the year 2020",
    year = "2020",
    journal = "Language Dynamics and Change",
    abstract = "Abstract This introductory paper reviews recent advances in language evolution research and summarizes the contributions of the special issue “New Directions in Language Evolution Research” in the broader context of these developments. Specifically, we discuss the increasing role of multimodality and iconicity, the more integrative view of language dynamics that has arguably broadened the scope of language evolution research, and recent methodological innovations that allow for a more fine-grained study of e.g. typological distributions or behavioral patterns that can give clues to some of the key questions discussed in the field.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1163/22105832-bja10005",
    doi = "10.1163/22105832-bja10005",
    openalex = "W3040203717",
    references = "doi101016jcobeha201801001"
}

@article{doi101371journalpone0242709,
    author = "Miller, John E. and Tresoldi, Tiago and Zariquiey, Roberto and Beltrán, César and Morozova, Natalia and List, Johann‐Mattis",
    title = "Using lexical language models to detect borrowings in monolingual wordlists",
    year = "2020",
    journal = "PLoS ONE",
    abstract = "Lexical borrowing, the transfer of words from one language to another, is one of the most frequent processes in language evolution. In order to detect borrowings, linguists make use of various strategies, combining evidence from various sources. Despite the increasing popularity of computational approaches in comparative linguistics, automated approaches to lexical borrowing detection are still in their infancy, disregarding many aspects of the evidence that is routinely considered by human experts. One example for this kind of evidence are phonological and phonotactic clues that are especially useful for the detection of recent borrowings that have not yet been adapted to the structure of their recipient languages. In this study, we test how these clues can be exploited in automated frameworks for borrowing detection. By modeling phonology and phonotactics with the support of Support Vector Machines, Markov models, and recurrent neural networks, we propose a framework for the supervised detection of borrowings in mono-lingual wordlists. Based on a substantially revised dataset in which lexical borrowings have been thoroughly annotated for 41 different languages from different families, featuring a large typological diversity, we use these models to conduct a series of experiments to investigate their performance in mono-lingual borrowing detection. While the general results appear largely unsatisfying at a first glance, further tests show that the performance of our models improves with increasing amounts of attested borrowings and in those cases where most borrowings were introduced by one donor language alone. Our results show that phonological and phonotactic clues derived from monolingual language data alone are often not sufficient to detect borrowings when using them in isolation. Based on our detailed findings, however, we express hope that they could prove to be useful in integrated approaches that take multi-lingual information into account.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0242709",
    doi = "10.1371/journal.pone.0242709",
    openalex = "W3081931604",
    references = "doi101038s415970190341x"
}

@article{doi101126scienceade7981,
    author = "Brochhagen, Thomas and Boleda, Gemma and Gualdoni, Eleonora and Xu, Yang",
    title = "From language development to language evolution: A unified view of human lexical creativity",
    year = "2023",
    journal = "Science",
    abstract = "A defining property of human language is the creative use of words to express multiple meanings through word meaning extension. Such lexical creativity is manifested at different timescales, ranging from language development in children to the evolution of word meanings over history. We explored whether different manifestations of lexical creativity build on a common foundation. Using computational models, we show that a parsimonious set of semantic knowledge types characterize developmental data as well as evolutionary products of meaning extension spanning over 1400 languages. Models for evolutionary data account very well for developmental data, and vice versa. These findings suggest a unified foundation for human lexical creativity underlying both the fleeting products of individual ontogeny and the evolutionary products of phylogeny across languages.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1126/science.ade7981",
    doi = "10.1126/science.ade7981",
    openalex = "W4385298711",
    references = "doi101038s415970190341x"
}

@article{ambridge2024large,
    author = "Ambridge, Ben and Blything, Liam",
    title = "Large language models are better than theoretical linguists at theoretical linguistics",
    year = "2024",
    journal = "Theoretical Linguistics",
    abstract = "Large language models are better than theoretical linguists at theoretical linguistics, at least in the domain of verb argument structure; explaining why (for example), we can say both The ball rolled and Someone rolled the ball, but not both The man laughed and * Someone laughed the man. Verbal accounts of this phenomenon either do not make precise quantitative predictions at all, or do so only with the help of ancillary assumptions and by-hand data processing. Large language models, on the other hand (taking text-davinci-002 as an example), predict human acceptability ratings for these types of sentences with correlations of around r = 0.9, and themselves constitute theories of language acquisition and representation; theories that instantiate exemplar-, input- and construction-based approaches, though only very loosely. Indeed, large language models succeed where these verbal (i.e., non-computational) linguistic theories fail, precisely because the latter insist – in the service of intuitive interpretability – on simple yet empirically inadequate (over)generalizations.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1515/tl-2024-2002",
    doi = "10.1515/tl-2024-2002",
    number = "1-2",
    openalex = "W4400325183",
    pages = "33-48",
    volume = "50",
    references = "doi101016jcognition200612015, doi101075slcs2305has, doi101093acprofoso97801992685110010001, doi101093oso97801992437090010001, doi101111j1749818x200900127x, doi1011770142723719869731, doi101353lan20110012, doi101515cogl2011006, doi101515tl20140001, openalexw1558866924"
}