[Linganth] Re: [ANTHRO-L] Is "motherese" universal?

[samuels at anthro.umass.edu]

We don't get the cited journal in our library. But Falk's website links to the
abstract of her paper, "Evolution of motherese in prelinguistic hominins,"
from a 2003 conference on language and evolution in Kyoto, available here:

http://www.pri.kyoto-u.ac.jp/meetings/2003/kotobanokigen/
abstract.htm#_Toc55279796

People can draw their own conclusions. Obviously the universality of
motherese has been rendered defenseless in linguistic anthropology, and it's
unfortunate that there is still so little inter-specialty communication in
these matters.

One thing I can say - not in Falk's defense, but to offer the different
context in which she is operating - is this: questions of whether
bipdalism, and the morphological results of selection for
bipedalism, were necessary precursors to the evolution of language is a much
more important question in paleoanthropology than it is in linguistic
anthropology. What can we contribute to that dialogue?