‘The first glimmerings of language’

Is it possible to learn something of significance about the evolution of language and/or speech from modern motherese? Dean Falk (2004, 2009, 2012b) argues that the vocal interactions in which contemporary mothers and their infants engage are indeed instructive in this regard. More specifically, Falk (2004: 491) maintains that it is possible ‘to formulate hypotheses about the evolutionary underpinnings that preceded the first glimmerings of language’ by comparing mother–infant gestural and vocal interactions in humans and chimpanzees, and by using these ‘to model those of early hominins’. She (2004: 491) refers to the first glimmerings of language in early hominins also as ‘the prelinguistic substrates of protolanguage’.

At first blush, the models used by Falk to formulate hypotheses about prelinguistic evolution in early hominins appear to resemble windows on the evolution of language. The present chapter is concerned overall with two questions: ‘To what the extent does Falk's modern motherese model have the properties of a window on language evolution?’ And, accordingly: ‘Is Falk right or wrong to contend that modern motherese is a phenomenon from which we can learn what prelinguistic evolution involved?’

Falk, in developing her account of the evolution of language, uses the modern motherese model in conjunction with various other models. These other models include contemporary first language acquisition, behaviours of non-human primates such as chimpanzees and bonobos, and behaviours of modern hunter-gatherers. Also included in this focus is the way in which Falk complements the modern motherese model with other models to develop a more comprehensive account of the evolution of language. Excluded from this focus, however, are the ways in which scholars other than Falk have drawn on modern motherese in their study of language evolution. The reason for concentrating on Falk's ideas is that she is to the modern motherese model what Derek Bickerton is to the pidgin window, and what Susan Goldin-Meadow is to the sign language window.

In addition to this introductory section, the chapter comprises six more main sections. Section 7.2 is used for unpacking Falk's characterisation of modern motherese. In Section 7.3, I set out the basic ideas of Falk's account of prelinguistic evolution in early hominins and I locate the modern motherese model within her more comprehensive account of language evolution.