Grice (1982) and Bar-On and Green (2010) each provide 'continuity stories' which attempt to explain how a human-like language could emerge from the primitive communication practices of non-human animals. I offer desiderata for a proper account of linguistic continuity in order to argue that these previous accounts fall short in important ways. I then introduce the recent evolutionary literature on non-cooperative communication in order to construct a continuity story which better satisfies the proposed desiderata while retaining the positive aspects of the proposals of Grice and Bar-On and Green. The outcome of this project is a more tenable and empirically investigable framework chronicling the evolution of human-like language from communicative abilities currently found in non-human animals.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:GEORGIA/oai:digitalarchive.gsu.edu:philosophy_theses-1093 |
| Date | 20 April 2011 |
| Creators | Beighley, Steven M |
| Publisher | Digital Archive @ GSU |
| Source Sets | Georgia State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Philosophy Theses |
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