언어 진화와 언어 변화

Language Evolution and Language Change

It has long been a controversial issue whether the emergence of language was a sudden jump or a gradual process. In Jackendoff and Pinker (2005), every aspect of the language faculty (FL) is treated as pre-existing the emergence of language. In Hauser et al (2002), Fitch et al.(2005), and Chomsky (2007, in progress), however, the narrow FL (FLN) is the outcome of a point mutation that yields recursion to satisfy the C-I interface. Externalization and interaction at SM system, including communication, took place only as a secondary process. Gelderen (2006) offers two steps of evolution, such that the grammatical layer is added to the thematic layer already established at the first step (Bickerton 2000 and Piattelli-Palmarini and Uriagereka 2005), In this paper, I examine the details of these approaches, and point out their problems, relying on the psycholinguistic and neuroscientific evidence. In doing so, I claim that there are cases where C-I as well as SM interfaces have been subject to evolution, and propose further that the distinction between language evolution and language change be made on the base that the emergence of syntax followed the path that current change also follows.