Cover -- Half-title -- Title -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- Figures -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- The nature of this book -- A pluralistic, multi-component perspective -- Plan of the book -- Section 1 The lay of the land: an overview of disciplines and data relevant to language evolution -- 1 Language from a biological perspective -- 1.1 A biological approach to the "hardest problem in science" -- 1.2 A comparative, pluralistic approach -- 1.3 The faculty of language: broad and narrow senses -- 1.4 Debates and distinctions in language evolution: an overview -- 1.4.1 Communication and language -- 1.4.2 Genes and environment: nature via nurture -- 1.4.3 Innateness and learning: language as an instinct to learn -- 1.4.4 I-language and E-language: cultural and biological evolution of language -- 2 Evolution: consensus and controversy -- 2.1 Introduction -- 2.2 Evolution: the beginnings -- 2.2.1 Natural selection -- 2.3 Categories of selection: sexual, kin, and group selection -- 2.3.1 Sexual selection -- 2.3.2 Inclusive fitness and kin selection -- 2.3.3 "Group selection" - a highly ambiguous term -- 2.4 The comparative method: the biologist's time machine -- 2.5 Controversies and resolutions in contemporary evolutionary theory -- 2.5.1 Mutation, saltation, and the modern synthesis -- 2.5.2 Resolution: evolutionarily stable strategies -- 2.5.3 Punctuated equilibrium and sudden evolutionary change -- 2.5.4 Macromutations and gradualism -- 2.5.5 Resolution: evo-devo and deep homology: genetic conservation down the ages -- 2.5.6 Selection and constraints: limits on adaptation and natural selection -- 2.5.7 Shifts in function: adaptation, preadaptation, and exaptation -- 2.6 The evolution of behavior: constraints of the "four whys" -- 2.6.1 Explaining behavior: Tinbergen's "four whys" -- 2.6.2 The role of behavior in evolution.

2.7 Summary -- 3 Language -- 3.1 Sensitive periods for language acquisition -- 3.2 Understanding linguists: an interdisciplinary dilemma -- 3.3 Modern linguistics and the interface with biology -- 3.3.1 Western linguistics: description not prescription -- 3.3.2 Generative linguistics: mental, formal, and biological -- 3.3.3 Biolinguistics: exploring the biological basis for language -- Encapsulation -- Innateness -- The poverty of the stimulus -- 3.3.4 The biological basis for language: terminology and "Universal Grammar" -- 3.3.5 Historical linguistics revisited: glossogeny and natural selection -- Components of language: a survey -- 3.4 Phonology -- 3.4.1 Phonology: a generative system -- 3.4.2 Blurry borders: phonetics, phonology, and syntax -- 3.4.3 Signals and the structure of phoneme inventories -- 3.4.4 Sequence memory, hierarchy, and the particulate principle -- 3.5 Syntax -- 3.5.1 Introduction: the challenge and complexity of syntax -- 3.5.2 What is syntax? -- 3.5.3 Many flavors of modern syntax -- 3.5.4 The autonomy of syntax: formalism and functionalism -- 3.5.5 Computability and the theory of computation -- Formal language theory -- 3.5.6 Formal language theory and music -- The formal characterizations of musical "syntax" -- 3.5.7 Syntax summary: what needed to evolve -- 3.6 An appetizer: four hypotheses about the evolution of syntax -- 3.7 Semantics -- 3.7.1 The study of meaning in language -- 3.7.2 Formal semantics and propositional meaning -- 3.7.3 Mentalist semantics and the semiotic triangle -- 3.7.4 Child language acquisition: the acquisition of word meanings -- 3.7.5 Constraints on guesses about word meaning -- 3.8 Pragmatics -- 3.8.1 Pragmatics: context is everything -- 3.8.2 Pragmatic inference: context and interpretation -- 3.8.3 Inferential models of communication.

3.8.4 Symmetry of signaler and receiver: shedding a misleading intuition -- 3.8.5 The evolution of inference: conceptual components -- 3.8.6 Biological components of the theory of mind -- 3.8.7 Autism and "mindblindness" -- 3.8.8 Mitteilungsbedürfnis: the human need to share meaning -- 3.9 Chapter summary: multiple components of language -- 4 Animal cognition and communication -- 4.1 Animal cognition: exorcising Skinner's ghost -- 4.2 Overview of animal cognition and communication -- 4.3 The study of animal cognition -- 4.4 Animal cognitive capabilities: the basic toolkit -- 4.4.1 Categorization and learning -- 4.4.2 Memory -- 4.4.3 Time and planning -- 4.4.4 Inference and reasoning -- 4.4.5 Number -- 4.4.6 Cross-modal matching -- 4.4.7 Serial order -- 4.5 Specialized forms of intelligence: physical and social intelligence -- 4.5.1 Animal tool use and "physical intelligence" -- 4.5.2 Animal interactions and "social intelligence" -- 4.5.3 Dogs and gaze following: a simple trick? -- 4.5.4 Avian social intelligence -- 4.6 Social learning, culture, and traditions: "animal culture" -- 4.6.1 Vocal traditions -- 4.6.2 Non-vocal traditions -- 4.7 Inter-species communication: animals' latent abilities to use language-like systems -- 4.7.1 Ape "language" studies -- 4.7.2 Communication between humans and other vertebrates -- 4.7.3 Are constraints on word learning adaptations "for" language? -- 4.8 Animal cognition: conclusions -- 4.9 Animal communication -- 4.9.1 Continuity and discontinuity: a false dichotomy -- 4.9.2 Signals: a key distinction between innate and learned signals -- 4.9.3 Emotional expression and "reflexive" communication in animals -- 4.10 Structure: phonological and syntactic phenomena in animal communication -- 4.10.1 Non-random ordering -- 4.10.2 Phonological syntax and animal "song" -- 4.10.3 Meaningful syntax.

4.11 Semantics and the meaning of animal signals: reference and intentionality -- 4.11.1 Pragmatic inference in animal communication -- 4.11.2 Functionally referential signals -- 4.11.3 Interpreting functional referentiality -- 4.11.4 Pragmatic signalers: are animals intentionally informative? -- 4.12 The evolution of "honest" communication: a fundamental problem -- 4.12.1 How can "honest" signals evolve? -- 4.12.2 Other routes to honesty: shared interests and communication among kin -- 4.12.3 Kin-selected communication systems -- 4.13 Chapter summary -- Section 2 Meet the ancestors -- 5 Meet the ancestors -- 5.1 From a single cell to Miocene primates -- 5.2 In the beginning: the first cells and the genetic code -- 5.3 Eukaryotes: the origins of cellular biology -- 5.4 Early metazoans: epigenesis, the Urbilaterian, and the developmental toolkit -- 5.5 Getting a head (and jaws): the first fish and the vertebrate nervous system -- 5.6 Onto the land: proto-tetrapods -- 5.7 Finding a voice: early tetrapods and vocal communication -- 5.8 In the shadow of dinosaurs: amniotes and early mammals -- 5.9 The End-Cretaceous extinction begins the age of mammals -- 5.10 Early primates: sociality, color vision, and larger brains -- 5.11 Early apes and the last common ancestor -- 5.12 Chapter summary: from the first cell to the last common ancestor -- 6 The LCA: our last common ancestor with chimpanzees -- 6.1 Reconstructing the LCA -- 6.1.1 Communication -- 6.1.2 Sociality -- 6.1.3 Tool use, hunting, and medicine -- 6.1.4 Violence -- 6.2 The ape's impasse: the hominoid mother's dilemma -- 6.3 Male parental care -- 6.4 Evolving paternal care and monogamy -- 6.5 Implications for language evolution: Why us and not others? -- 6.6 Summary -- 7 Hominid paleontology and archaeology -- 7.1 What the fossils tell us -- 7.2 Paleospecies: naming fossil hominids.

7.3 A broad overview: major stages in human evolution since the LCA -- 7.4 The earliest hominids -- 7.5 Australopithecines: bipedal apes -- 7.6 The Oldowan Industry and the genus Homo -- 7.7 A major transition in human evolution: Homo erectus -- 7.8 Neanderthals: our large-brained sister species -- 7.9 The common ancestor of Neanderthals and AMHS -- 7.10 Anatomically modern Homo sapiens: Out of Africa -- 7.11 AMHS and the Upper Paleolithic "Revolution" -- 7.12 The evolution of human brain size -- 7.12.1 Absolute brain size -- 7.12.2 Relative brain size -- 7.12.3 Encephalization quotient (EQ) -- What does brain size tell us? -- 7.13 Reorganization of neural connectivity -- 7.13.1 Fossil endocasts -- 7.14 The brain as an expensive tissue -- 7.15 Integrating the strands: brain size and brain structure in human evolution -- 7.16 Summary: from the LCA to modern Homo sapiens -- Section 3 The evolution of speech -- 8 The evolution of the human vocal tract -- 8.1 Speech is not language, but is important nonetheless -- 8.2 Vertebrate vocal production: basic bioacoustics -- 8.2.1 The pulmonary airstream -- 8.2.2 The voice source -- 8.2.3 The vocal tract filter -- 8.2.4 Independence of source and filter in vocal production -- 8.3 The reconfigured human vocal tract -- 8.3.1 People are strange -- 8.3.2 The role of the descended larynx in speech -- 8.3.3 Application to fossil hominids -- 8.4 The comparative data I: mammal vocal production -- 8.4.1 Dynamic reconfiguration of the mammalian vocal tract -- 8.4.2 Permanently descended larynges in nonhuman mammals -- 8.4.3 The function of the descended larynx: size exaggeration -- 8.5 Comparative data II: Is speech perception special? -- 8.5.1 Frequency sensitivity -- 8.5.2 Categorical perception -- 8.5.3 Other potentially special aspects of speech perception -- 8.6 Implications of the comparative data.

8.7 Reconstructing the vocal abilities of extinct hominids.