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

[samuels at anthro.umass.edu]

I certainly didn't mean to imply that there *wasn't* something we could
contribute! But a theme of the conversations I've had with
paleoanthropologists has been that the question of language evolution is often
replaced by questions about the consequences of selection for bipedalism
opening possibilities for cognitive development. Not quite the same question.
Another possible response to Falk is that even if motherese *were* universal,
that wouldn't necessarily explain why/how language evolved, either. (See
Rudolf Botha's series of articles in Language & Communication, for example.)

Happy New Year!

David