Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-dfsvx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T23:59:48.549Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Language evolution: Two tracks are not enough

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 October 2009

A. Charles Catania
A. Charles Catania
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), Baltimore, MD 21250. catania@umbc.eduhttp://www.umbc.edu/psyc/personal/catania/catanias.html
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This commentary argues that Evans & Levinson (E&L) should expand their two-track model to a three-track model in which biological and cultural evolution interact with the evolution of an individual's language repertories in ontogeny. It also comments on the relevance of the argument from the poverty of the stimulus and offers a caveat, based on analogous issues in biology, on the metaphor of language as a container, whether of meanings or of other content.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 32 , Issue 5 , October 2009 , pp. 451 - 452
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Catania, A. C. (1973) The psychologies of structure, function, and development. American Psychologist 28:434–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Catania, A. C. (1987) Some Darwinian lessons for behavior analysis. A review of Peter J. Bowler's “The eclipse of Darwinism.” Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior 47:249–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Catania, A. C. (1990) What good is five percent of a language competence? Behavioral and Brain Sciences 13:729–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Catania, A. C. (1995) Single words, multiple words, and the functions of language. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 18:184–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Catania, A. C. (2001) Three varieties of selection and their implications for the origins of language. In: Language evolution: Biological, linguistic and philosophical perspectives, ed. Gyori, G., pp. 55–71. Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Catania, A. C. (2003) Why behavior should matter to linguists. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 26:670–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Catania, A. C. (2004) Antecedents and consequences of words. European Journal of Behavior Analysis 5:55–64.Google Scholar
Catania, A. C. (2008) Brain and behavior: Which way does the shaping go? Behavioral and Brain Sciences 31(5):516–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Catania, A. C. & Cerutti, D. (1986) Some nonverbal properties of verbal behavior. In: Analysis and integration of behavioral units, ed. Thompson, T. & Zeiler, M. D., pp. 185–211. Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Catania, A. C. & Shimoff, E. (1998) The experimental analysis of verbal behavior. Analysis of Verbal Behavior 15:97–100.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chomsky, N. (1965) Aspects of the theory of syntax. MIT Press.Google Scholar
Dawkins, R. (1982) The extended phenotype. Freeman.Google Scholar
Hart, B. & Risley, T. R. (1995) Meaningful differences in the everyday experience of young American children. Brookes.Google Scholar
Moerk, E. L. (1992) First language: Taught and learned. Brookes.Google Scholar
Reddy, M. J. (1979) The conduit metaphor – a case of frame conflict in our language about language. In: Metaphor and thought, ed. Ortony, A., pp. 284–324. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Terrace, H. S. (1975) Evidence of the innate basis of the hue dimension in the duckling. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior 24:79–87.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed