The question of the origin and evolution of language is one of the most fundamental, but also one of the most
speculative philosophical questions. In this assignment, I will compare two theories of the origin and evolution of
language: Berwick and Chomsky's saltationist theory and Tomasello's gradualist theory. In the first chapter, I will first briefly outline the history of Chomsky's minimalist program, the findings of which Berwick and Chomsky try to
integrate into the research program of biolinguistics, within the framework of which they devise their theory of the origin and evolution of language. As Berwick and Chomsky argue, language arose as a result of a minimal
reorganization of the human brain that gave rise to the operation Merge. After a brief presentation of this operation, I will touch on some problematic implications of their theory, especially their violation of the Darwinian law that nature does not make leaps, and the implications of their theory for explaining the relationship between language and thought.
In the first part, I will also present the so called Kripkenstein's argument, which Chomsky himself called one of the most interesting arguments against the conceptual design of generative grammar. Wittgenstein's philosophical
criticism will pave the way for the second part of the assignment, in which I will focus on Tomasello's gradualist
theory, which was significantly influenced by Wittgenstein's philosophical thought. Tomasello opposes Berwick and
Chomsky's idea that language arose as a result of a sudden and minimal reorganization of the brain, arguing instead
that language developed through several phases shaped by the pressures of cultural evolution. As I will show,
Tomasello builds a good argument based on a number of empirical studies in the fields of primatology and language
acquisition, but ultimately falls for the idea that the evolution of language can be explained in terms of
conventionalization. I will say why I do not agree with such a constructivist interpretation, and conclude that some of
Tomasello's conceptual distinctions and empirical findings would be worth integrating into the generativist program.
In the conclusion, I will also define the implications of both theories for the conception of human nature.
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