Monogenesis and polygenesis

[Scott DeLancey]

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Following a couple of similar points, bwald wrote:
 
> The point may have been made without me recognizing it, but it seems to me
> that when whatever neural development evolved that allowed "humans" (for
> the sake of argument) to acquire language in the natural way that they now
> do, it does not automatically follow that that ability immediately
> transformed itself into language as we know it today, particularly with
> respect to a core lexicon in a unique homogeneous human community.  That
> assumption is essential to our use of lexicon to reconstruct ancestral
> languages according to the monogenetic model, and it has no direct bearing
 
[and then]
 
> could be like current humans, pace Herodotus)  So, it seems to me as likely
> as not that humans developed much, if not all, of even their "basic"
> lexicon in various independent sites/groupings.  I'm not saying that it's
> MORE likely than not, just that until we know more about early human social
> organizational dynamics, it's JUST AS likely.
 
But all of the comments along this line miss my point.  (Which, to be
sure, I didn't make very thoroughly, this being HISTLING and not EVOLANG).
The basic point is that a functioning language--NOT the appropriate
neural structures, a fully-formed set of parameters, or whatever
mumbo-jumbo you might want to think of as the necessary biological
prerequisites for language, but functioning language--would give the
first population to develop it a significant selectional advantage
over all others.  We can see this with lots of other cultural
developments;  agriculture is an example that's gotten a lot of
attention recently.  Cf. Bellwood's and Renfrew's arguments about
the expansion of agricultural populations at the expense of others.
(This is quite distinct, BTW, from Renfrew's ill-thought-out notions
about Indo-European).
 
Thus, in our imagined pre-linguistic situation, once one group has
developed language, other groups will not have the chance--they will
either adopt what the first folks off the block have created, or
they will lose out.
 
> (Think about it.  If, say, one or a group of current chimpanzees evolved by
> quantum leap the capacity for language, syntax or whatever, do you think
> they would develop a basic lexicon to exploit that language potential
> before the genes spread to other chimpanzee communities?)
 
It doesn't matter.  Once they've developed what they need to exploit their
language potential, everyone else will join them or be left behind.
 
Scott DeLancey
Department of Linguistics
University of Oregon
Eugene, OR 97403, USA
 
delancey at darkwing.uoregon.edu
http://www.uoregon.edu/~delancey/prohp.html