Language evolution, semantic domains, and the computation delusion

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While the Chomskyan revolution has delivered many benefits, the preoccupation with scientificsounding explanations centered on linear computation may also have taken us down one or two wrong rabbit-holes. This is true not just for mainstream theoretical linguistic research but for all language-related endeavors. There are severe problems with the Chomskyan account, which is now the minority position. It is therefore time to consider the possibility that computational accounts involving abstract, discrete syntactic features will prove an inadequate basis for language-related research and practice. Our focus moves, once more, away from syntax to cultural and historical meaning. Just as language evolution relates to the evolution of bipedal apes over millions of years, language structure relates to domain-general cognitive processes that continue to develop in the cultural experience of the individual. Evidence is offered that the influence of certain kinds of local semantic domains has not been sufficiently acknowledged, perhaps because doing so undermines the institutional fantasy that language may be adequately characterized in terms of linear code. We stand at a crossroads, at a time of true paradigm shift. For language-related studies in general, we will see a movement away from the view that language is primarily a syntactically computational system, the accidental product of random mutation, primarily of importance in relation to abstract thought processes, with communication a mere by-product. We will increasingly come to credit the invention of language to our bipedal hominin ancestors, with the instinct to cooperate and communicate meaning as the central driving dynamic. Language is our most important tool, for thinking as well as communication. It has made it possible to evolve to the point where we are masters of the world, able to forge a bright future or lay waste to all around us. Understanding the evolution of language will help us understand who we are and where we are going.

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