Language evolution: Two tracks are not enough

Abstract

AbstractThis commentary argues that Evans & Levinson (E&L) should expand their two-track model to a three-track model in which biological and cultural evolution interact with the evolution of an individual's language repertories in ontogeny. It also comments on the relevance of the argument from the poverty of the stimulus and offers a caveat, based on analogous issues in biology, on the metaphor of language as a container, whether of meanings or of other content.