Biolinguistics

Hauser et al. (2002) suggest that the human language faculty emerged as a genetic innovation in the form of what is called here a ‘keystone factor’—a single, simple, formal mental capability that, interacting with the pre-existing faculties of hominid ancestors, caused a cascade of effects resulting in the language faculty in modern humans. They take Merge to be the keystone factor, but instead it is posited here that Merge is the pre-existing mechanism of thought made viable by a principle that permits relations interpretable at the interfaces to be mapped onto c-command. The simplified minimalist architecture proposed here respects the keystone factor as closely as possible, but is justified on the basis of linguistic analyses it makes available, including a relativized intervention theory applicable across Case, scope, agreement, selection and linearization, a derivation of the A/A’-distinction from Case theory, and predictions such as why in situ wh-interpretation is island-inse...

Presentation at “The Way We Think: A Research Symposium on Conceptual Integration and the Nature and Origin of Cognitively Modern Humans.” University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Demark, August 19-23,  2002. Document includes Supplemental Materials: Resource Guide and Commentaries
In recent years the relationship between language change and biological evolution has captured the attention of investigators operating in different disciplines, particularly evolutionary biology, AI and A-Life (Zeimke 2001, Hull 2001), as well as linguistics (Croft 2000; Sinha 1999), with each group often bringing radically different conceptualizations of the object under study, namely, “language” itself, to the debate.  Over the centuries, meanings associated with the expression “language” have been influenced by mappings of conceptual frames and inputs from the biological sciences onto the entity referred to as “language”. At the same time the prestige of the “science of linguistics” created a feedback mechanism by which the referentiality of “language”, at each stage, was mapped back into the field of evolutionary biology along with the emergent structure(s) of the resulting “blend”. While significant energy has been spent on identifying ways in which biological evolution has been linked to concepts of language evolution (Dörries 2002), little attention has been directed to the nature of the conceptual integration networks that have been produced in the process. This paper examines the way conceptual integration theory can be brought to bear on the “blends” that have been created, focusing primarily on examples drawn from 19th century debates concerning the “language-species-organism analogy” in the emerging field of comparative-historical philology.

Dyslexia is a specific learning disorder characterized by difficulties in reading, writing, and spelling due to compromised phonological processing skills. Treatment of dyslexia solely with medical support is farfetched. However, it can be surmounted by the combination of special education interventions and supportive psychosocial care. Suitable approaches coupled with beneficial learning strategies enable dyslexic learners with consummate linguistic achievement. Although dyslexia research offers an increased understanding from a biological standpoint, the knowledge gap on the educational front is unfortunately persistent. To this end, this paper revisits the teaching-learning aspects of dyslexia. Teaching principles and approaches, strategies to support learning, and personalized educational plans are discussed in detail. Acknowledging the difficulty, familiarizing with the approaches, and attaining successful outcomes via essential practices emphasize the inclusiveness of dyslexic learners in the curriculum. We contend that the educational insights into dyslexia will provide informed teaching and learning solutions.

We further develop the self-centered model of mental representations for language with the focus on the mechanisms underlying syntactic calculus and the construction of larger meaningful constructs out of the basic syntactic units. We consider the inborn multimodal perception and  the self-concept as an actor in an environment as the basis for concept formation and syntactic construction. Based on relevant findings in language acquisition, we investigate the perceptual, semantic, and syntactic aspects of mental apparatus. We see this apparatus as an overall system that can handle the task of conceptualization and the task of syntactic construction using the same mechanisms. Based on the argument-centered model of mental representations which involves such processing homogeneity, we show the gradual development of the complexity of syntactic formants during language acquisition.

Keywords: language acquisition, syntax complexity, mental operations
ACM classification keywords: I.2.0: Artificial Intelligence, I.2.7: Natural Language Processing

O objetivo deste trabalho é tratar da pesquisa em Aquisição de Segunda Língua no modelo de Princípios e Parâmetros (Chomsky 1981, 1986, 1995, 2000, 2005, 2013). Com foco nas propriedades de sujeito nulo de pares linguísticos espanhol-português, problematizamos algumas questões debatidas mais recentemente na comunidade linguística internacional quanto a primitivos teóricos e à representação de gramáticas não-monolíngues. Esperamos poder contribuir para a construção de um cenário de possíveis agendas de pesquisa no âmbito do programa biolinguístico de investigação a partir de um contexto linguístico latino-americano.

This article aims to address Second Language Acquisition research under the Principles and Parameters model (Chomsky 1981, 1986, 1995, 2000, 2005, 2013). Focusing on null subject properties in Spanish-Portuguese pairs, we examine some issues that have been debated most recently by the international linguistic community, in particular concerning theoretical primitives and representation of non-monolingual grammars. We expect this work to contribute to drawing a scenario for the construction of possible research agendas in the field of the biolinguistic inquiry from a Latin American linguistic context.

Edited by Anna Maria di Sciullo and Cedric Boeckx Oxford: Oxford University Press 2011. ISBN 978-0-19-955327-3 (Hbk) 978-0-19-955328-0 (Pbk) One of the most fascinating but at the same time still not very thoroughly investigated fields is the "Biolinguistic enterprise" of human language faculty as opposed to other means of communication between say animals or computers and humans. Anna Maria di Sciullo and Cedric Boeckx, the editors of the present issue, belong to the founders of the new type of interdisciplinary research that seeks to explore "the basic properties of human language and to investigate how it matures in the individual, how it is put to use in thought and communication, what brain circuits implement it, what combination of genes supports it, and how it emerged in our species." (General preface).

Recent advances in the context of the biological studies of the human language capacity make it clear that a successful marriage of the relevant disciplines— linguistics and biology, broadly construed—will require a serious rethinking of the neurobiological foundations of language. It is our aim in this paper to give a flavor of some of the results of current investigations carried out by our research group that we think contribute to this emerging neurobiology of language.

Human language is viewed and studied by some authors as a natural object and by other scholars as a social and cultural object. Actually, human language, as usually observed, manifests itself as a tightly entangled bundle of natural and cultural features. In the present essay we propose several ways to disentangle this complex feature bundle in order to show that often what seems contradictory is really complementary. The main goal of this book consists in showing that both views are correct and compatible if applied in a proper way. In order to do that it is necessary to differentiate two distinct entities: natural languages and cultivated languages. A natural language develops in childhood in a spontaneous way on the basis of the innate capabilities determined by the human faculty of language. In contrast, a cultivated language is culturally determined and must be acquired by the individuals through guided learning, since it is based on certain cultural elaborations of a natural language. We show that some of the most controversial topics in current linguistic research are vitiated by the failure to make this distinction or by a poor understanding of it.

El lenguaje humano, bien como causa, bien como consecuencia, es probablemente lo más característico y representativo de nuestra especie. Si es cierto que la vida sobre la tierra es un paso más en la evolución hacia la complejidad de la materia que se creó después del Big Bang, el desarrollo del lenguaje humano y especialmente de la gramática, que es su núcleo esencial y diferenciador, constituye la piedra angular del desarrollo de la complejidad alcanzada por el cerebro humano y sus complejas creaciones. Este libro considera que la gramática es natural en los dos sentidos posibles: como la parte central del lenguaje humano y como la ciencia que la estudia. Como esencia del lenguaje humano, la gramática representa el nexo decisivo entre la complejidad biológica y la complejidad cultural. Como ciencia, la gramática representa el ámbito idóneo en el que las dos culturas tradicionales ("ciencias y letras") se funden en la que debería ser la Tercera Cultura.

Las lenguas humanas son una compleja mezcla de biología e historia. Su estructura está determinada por un delicado equilibrio entre el condicionamiento natural procedente del diseño del organismo y la influencia del entorno. El punto de vista biolingüístico se ha centrado esencialmente en el estudio del condicionamiento natural, común a todas las lenguas. Sin embargo, las lenguas humanas cambian en el tiempo y ofrecen un alto grado de diversidad estructural. A través de la comparación entre lenguas y especies, en el presente ensayo se concibe la diversidad de las lenguas como una consecuencia del cambio lingüístico y se desarrolla una propuesta de cómo se debe abordar la diversidad de las lenguas en el tiempo y en el espacio desde el punto del vista biolingüístico, todo ello orientado a una indagación sobre qué nos dice esa diversidad acerca de la facultad humana para el lenguaje.

Contenido: Comparación entre lenguas y especies - Teorías del cambio lingüístico y teorías de la evolución natural - La naturaleza del cambio lingüístico - Alcance y profundidad de la diversidad de las lenguas - La Gramática Universal y la Facultad del Lenguaje desde el punto de vista minimalista - La estructura de una teoría paramétrica minimalista - Lo posible y lo probable: teoría gramatical, tipología e historia.

The aspects exposed here are an oversimplification of highly debated issues in the two fields. The controversies take place not only between the two frameworks, but also within them. This extremely brief presentation is meant to show only the general characters and the main premises of the two parts involved in the long standing discussion.

Almost from its inception, one of the most notable features of Noam Chomsky’s “revolution in linguistics” has been his insistence that linguistics, or at least the most interesting and important aspects of linguistics, must be understood as a part of natural science. Its status as natural science is frequently posited as a critical distinction between Chomskyan linguistics and all (or almost all) other approaches to the subject. While much attention has been directed to the way Chomsky’s definitions of language and linguistics structure his research program, Chomsky’s conception of science has been subject to much less scrutiny, and turns out to be both very specific and controversial. Chomskyan science rules out, rather than in, many practices associated with contemporary scientific investigation, particularly direct empirical investigation of ordinary social and mental phenomena. Instead, Chomsky has long explicitly endorsed what he calls “Cartesian rationalism,” a view that proceeds from just those Aristotelian precepts to which modern science is typically understood to have developed in opposition. Chomsky’s project resembles and in many ways follows in lock-step that of Edmund Husserl, the first major figure to discuss “universal grammar” and to name it as such; while Chomsky rarely discusses Husserl, Chomsky’s attempts to erect a science by ruling out metaphysics are notably Husserlian, in that they continually return to metaphysical propositions that are not recognized as such, and in that this continual return in the name of science is typically marked by the name of Descartes.

"1. The diversity of languages as a myth. 2. Inductive and deductive approaches to language unity and diversity. 3. The False Problem of UG: Innatism and Emergentism. 4. A note on the minimalist UG and the universality of syntax. 5. The Naturalist Approach: Languages as natural objects. 6. The long shadow of neo-Darwinism: Languages as cultural objects. 7. Co-evolution: When Linguistic change and language evolution are
conflated. 8. Neo-relativism and human nature. 9. Conclusion: The true value of linguistic diversity for Biolinguistics"

Deseo agradecer a la Junta Directiva de la Sociedad Española de Lingüística su iniciativa de organizar la sesión monográfica sobre lenguaje y biología y muy especialmente a su moderador, Guillermo Lorenzo, su invitación para participar en la misma. Asimismo deseo agradecer a Manuel Leonetti y al resto del Consejo de Redacción de la Revista Española de Lingüística que dé cabida en estas páginas a las aportaciones de dicha sesión.

The present volume offers a collection of essays covering a broad range of areas where currently a rapprochement between linguistics and biology is actively being sought. Following a certain tradition, we call this attempt at a synthesis “biolinguistics.” The nine chapters (grouped into three parts: Language and Cognition, Language and the Brain, and Language and the Species) offer a comprehensive overview of issues at the forefront of biolinguistic research, such as language structure; language development; linguistic change and variation; language disorders and language processing; the cognitive, neural and genetic basis of linguistic knowledge; or the evolution of the Faculty of Language. Each contribution highlights exciting prospects for the field, but they also point to significant obstacles along the way. The main conclusion is that the age of theoretical exclusivity in Linguistics, much like the age of theoretical specificity, will have to end if interdisciplinarity is to reign and if biolinguistics is to flourish.

pp. 256 - 279.

O que cabe indagar, e será isso que se pretende realizar neste texto, é: Em que medida o interesse investido na categoria de biopolítica não esconde outros motivos estratégicos, sendo tecidos pelo próprio campo do direito, quanto se convence que a soberania popular está minada internamente por um equívoco de ordem lógica. Seria possível também expressar esta ideia da seguinte forma: De tão abrangente que o termo se tornou, e tão reduzido a objetivos legalísticos, será que a biopolítica não desvia, no final das contas, qualquer crítica radical do funcionamento do espaço jurídico, para iniciar simplesmente um outro ramo do discurso vanglorioso do direito? Esta indagação se levanta não apenas, e talvez nem principalmente, em decorrência da marginalização do tópico das relações de trabalho, de classe e do esquecimento da escravidão nas pós-democracias. Nossa indagação almeja ainda uma relação com a ciência, agora reduzida na sua teoria a uma técnica de exploração de facetas diferentes da vivência das pessoas jurídicas, cuja expressão mais melancólica é típica da obra de Agamben.

A detailed review of the work of Thomas A. Sebeok (1920-2001) in the field of biosemiotics. This includes Sebeok’s relationships to biology and his work on building biosemiotics, or semiotic biology, including both his work as a theoretician in the field and his activity in organising, publishing, and communicating. It reviews Sebeok’s (a) establishing of zoosemiotics, (b) interpretation and development of Jakob von Uexküll’s and Heini Hediger’s ideas, (c) typological, comparative, and evolutionary study of semiosis and semiotic phenomena in living organisms, (d) idea that life is semiosis, and that semiosphere coincides with biosphere, (e) research on the history of biosemiotics, and (f) his organizational work in establishing biosemiotics.

Es muy fácil escoger un tema para un artículo en homenaje a Ángel López. Prácticamente para cada área del estudio del lenguaje en la que se piense (fonología, morfología, sintaxis, semántica, pragmática, gramática descriptiva, lingüística histórica, fraseología, teoría del lenguaje, psicolingüística, neurolingüística, lingüística amerindia, lenguas de especialidad, política lingüística, biología y evolución del lenguaje, historia de la lingüística, etc.) es posible encontrar una contribución relevante del mismo, normalmente en forma de monografía. La lista de publicaciones del maestro aragonés muestra una amplitud temática que, en lo que yo sé, no tiene parangón en la lingüística mundial. Ángel no es sólo un lingüista total, una categoría rara, y un especialmente fecundo maestro de lingüistas, sino que además es un sabio. Y de esos hay muy pocos. Es pues para mí un honor poder contribuir a tan merecido homenaje con esta aportación, que espero sirva de muestra de gratitud por su obra, por su ejemplo y por su amistad, y que le dedico con todo cariño y admiración.

k e y w o r d s Origin and evolution of language Units and levels of evolution Evolutionary mechanisms Processes Hierarchies Extended Synthesis Applied Evolutionary Epistemology Philosophy of biology
a b s t r a c t Modern evolutionary biology is currently characterized by epistemological divergence because, beyond organisms and genes, scholars nowadays investigate a plurality of units of evolution, they recognize multilevel selection, and especially from within the Extended Synthesis, scholars have identified a plurality of evolutionary mechanisms that besides natural selection can explain how the evolution of anatomical form and functional behavior occur. Evolutionary linguists have also implicated a multitude of units, levels and mechanisms involved in (aspects of) language evolution, which has also brought forth epistemological divergence on how language possibly evolved. Here, we examine how a general evolutionary methodology can become abstracted from how biologists study evolution, and how this methodology can become implemented into the field of Evolutionary Linguistics. Applied Evolutionary Epistemology (AEE) involves a systematic search and analysis of the units (that what evolves), levels (loci where evolution takes place), and mechanisms (means whereby evolution occurs) of language evolution, allocating them into ontological hierarchies, and distinguishing them from other kinds of evolution. In this paper in particular, we give an in-depth analysis of how AEE enables an identification, examination, and evaluation of levels and mechanisms of language evolution, and we hone in on how hierarchies and mechanisms of language (evolution) can and have been defined differentially. For an in-depth analysis of units of language evolution, we refer the reader to Gontier (2017) for which this paper functions as a follow-up. Thus, rather than present a specific theory of how language evolved, we present a methodology that enables us to unite existing research programs as well as to develop theories on the subject at hand.

Además de su valor primordial como definidora de categorías, la Lingüística tiene una versión aplicada, porque la lengua sirve para la comunicación. Esa comunicación se ha desarrollado en los ambientes temporales, geográficos y sociales que el Einstein de su última etapa consideraba meras ilusiones o que filósofos como Emanuel Kant definieron como «formas a priori de la sensibilidad». El lingüista, en todo caso, los ve como textos y, tradicionalmente, ha sido la Filología la encargada de ellos. Hoy cabe la posibilidad de añadir otras perspectivas a la Lingüísticas y la Filología. Se enfocan muchos de estos estudios desde las ciencias de la salud o naturales como la Medicina (Neurología), la Biología o la Bioquímica (Genética) y también hay una relación estrecha entre Lingüística y Física o con la Matemática, más allá de los lenguajes formales, hasta la Física de lo infinitamente pequeño y la teoría de la variación. Se han seleccionado algunos aspectos de otras ciencias, sobre todo de las ciencias humanas o sus aplicaciones sobre los que el autor ha tenido ya la posibilidad de enfocarse en otros momentos y que, por ello, puede tratar de una manera resumida, que implica en parte una reflexión sobre su propio trabajo.

The goal of the present contribution is to explore what kinds of objects languages are from a biolinguistic point of view. I define the biolinguistic point of view as a naturalistic study of languages and I show that from this point of view, languages are human language organs, that is, they are natural objects. However, languages change over time; therefore, they are also historically modified objects. Considering that natural organisms are historically modified natural objects, I look for inspiration in evolutionary theory to better specify what kinds of objects languages are and how they change and diversify. I conclude that every language is a 'unique evolutionary history' within a restricted space of design. This conclusion means that although the structure of languages reveals aspects of formal elegance and aspects of functional efficiency, there are no arguments to state that these aspects are manifested more or less intensely in some languages than in others. Then their formal and functional aspects are part of what is common to all languages, while variable parts of language are a reflection of the essentially historical nature of the lexical interface between the components of our language organs.

La presente contribución presenta una propuesta explícita, aunque tentativa, de cómo se distribuye en las lenguas humanas el peso de los factores biológicos y culturales. Más específicamente, se propone un modelo de la relación entre léxico y sintaxis en las lenguas humanas que permite usar la estrategia de correlacionar la cuestión de lo biológico y lo cultural en el lenguaje con la naturaleza de los diversos componentes de las lenguas. Así, se propone la siguiente correlación: la dimensión cultural del lenguaje se expresaría esencialmente en el componente léxico de las lenguas y la dimensión biológica en el componente sintáctico. Dicha estrategia permite además comprender mejor la diferente valoración del papel de los factores naturales en el diseño del le nguaje por parte de diferentes tradiciones de la teoría lingüística contemporánea. Palabras clave: biología del lenguaje, sintaxis, léxico, biolingüística 1. Introducción Es común aceptar que el lenguaje humano tiene tanto una dimensión biológica como cultural. La controversia teórica que caracteriza a la lingüística moderna suele centrarse, más que en la negación total de una de las dos dimensiones, en el mayor o menor énfasis que se pone en cada una de ellas a la hora de desarrollar programas de investigación del lenguaje y las lenguas.

I show that there are good arguments and evidence to boot that support the language as an instrument of thought hypothesis. The underlying mechanisms of language, comprising of expressions structured hierarchically and recursively, provide a perspective (in the form of a conceptual structure) on the world, for it is only via language that certain perspectives are available to us and to our thought processes. These mechanisms provide us with a uniquely human way of thinking and talking about the world that is different to the sort of thinking we share with other animals. If the primary function of language were communication then one would expect that the underlying mechanisms of language will be structured in a way that favours successful communication. I show that not only is this not the case, but that the underlying mechanisms of language are in fact structured in a way to maximise computational efficiency, even if it means causing communicative problems. Moreover, I discuss evidence from comparative, neuropathological, developmental, and neuroscientific evidence that supports the claim that language is an instrument of thought.

Noam Chomsky has long argued for the biological basis of our species’ language faculty, but has only recently involved himself in debates surrounding language evolution. His position is that language evolved through a saltation: in other words, language appeared in a single evolutionary step, and was not the result of adaptation for communication. This paper follows and criticizes the arguments advanced by Chomsky to defend this claim since his entry into the debate. His views were first made explicit in Hauser, Chomsky & Fitch (2002), wherein it is proposed that the sole characteristic of language differentiating it from other cognitive capacities in humans and animals is recursion. This implies that it is the only property that needed to have evolved specifically for language. A thorough review and critique of the article shows that it suffers from two major setbacks: a lack of definition of recursion, and the fact that the algorithm instantiating the recursion in question remains unspecified. Chomsky later published additional articles which resolved these issues (Chomsky, 2010; Berwick & Chomsky, 2011), drawing on findings in the Minimalist Program, his latest linguistic theory. After a brief overview of the Program, the premises and conclusions of his most recent work on language evolution are scrutinized, which defend a saltationist account of the evolution of the language faculty. This also reveals certain flaws in the argument, allowing me to argue that the saltationist scenario is unwarranted, even when one takes at face value the findings within the Minimalist Program. I conclude by proposing a gradualist scenario to demonstrate that it is more plausible than the saltationist account.

Keywords: language evolution, Minimalist Program, biolinguistics, saltationism

In this paper I consider recent studies that deny the existence of Universal Grammar (UG), and I show how the concept of UG that is attacked in these works is quite different from Chomsky's, and thus that such criticisms are not valid. My principal focus is on the notions of " linguistic specificity " and of " innateness " , and I conclude that, since the controversy about UG is based on misinterpretations, it is rendered sterile and thus does unnecessary harm to linguistic science. I also address the underlying reasons for these misunderstandings and suggest that, once they have been clarified, there is much scope for complementary approaches that embrace different research traditions within current theoretical linguistics.

How are concepts from mathematics necessary for a realist
ontology? How does philosophy of mathematics account for an
ontological perspective that seeks to ground a non-essentialist
theory of subject and subjectivation, in which mathematics
produces formal parameters that are extra-linguistic and show
partial independence from logic? Is philosophy of mathematics
necessarily reducible to analytic philosophical principles and
theorems, or does a variation in philosophical traditions also
imply a variation in the reading of at least certain aspects of
mathematics? What are the consequences mathematical ontology holds for research led by Stanislas Dehaene on the
neuropsychology of the “number sense”?

Neural oscillations at distinct frequencies are increasingly being related to a number of basic and higher cognitive faculties. Oscillations enable the construction of coherently organised neuronal assemblies through establishing transitory temporal correlations. By exploring the elementary operations of the language faculty – labeling, concatenation, cyclic transfer – alongside neural dynamics, a new model of linguistic computation is proposed. It is argued that the universality of language, and the true biological source of Universal Grammar, is not to be found purely in the genome as has long been suggested, but more specifically within the extraordinarily preserved nature of mammalian brain rhythms employed in the computation of linguistic structures. Computational-representational theories are used as a guide in investigating the neurobiological foundations of the human ‘cognome’ – the set of computations performed by the nervous system – and new directions are suggested for how the dynamics of brain (the ‘dynome’) operates and execute linguistic operations. The extent to which brain rhythms are the suitable neuronal processes which can capture the computational properties of the human language faculty is considered against a backdrop of existing cartographic research into the localisation of linguistic interpretation. Particular focus is placed on labeling, the operation elsewhere argued to be species-specific. A Basic Label model of the human cognome-dynome is proposed, leading to clear, causally-addressable empirical predictions, to be investigated by a suggested research program, Dynamic Cognomics. In addition, a distinction between minimal and maximal degrees of explanation is introduced to differentiate between the depth of analysis provided by cartographic, rhythmic, neurochemical and other approaches to computation.

This paper reviews the background, fundamental questions, current issues, and goals of biolinguistics and biosemiotics. The purpose of this paper is to give a brief history of these movements, to clarify common objectives and areas of overlap, to evaluate recent articulations of their respective future agendas, and to address some aspects of focus and disciplinary prejudice that may stand in the way of productive collaboration concerning the biology of language.

Linguists classically focus on phenomenologically salient units or verbal patterns. In biolinguistics, these are “explained” by positing a brain that grows a system that identifies / generates linguistic forms (a “language faculty”). The paper offers an alternative: individuals become skilled in linguistic action by using cultural resources to extend their embodiment. Language and languages are heterogeneous and distributed. Although the verbal is salient, its basis lies in coordinated biosemiotic activity. In illustrating this perspective, the paper builds on two case studies of real-time events. These show that people link fine inter-bodily coordination with skills in orienting to utterances as types – they use cultural patterns to constrain biosemiosis. As people become strategic actors, they rely on embodiment (and, of course, brains) to develop skills based on taking a language stance. By imaginatively separating language from activity, they both tame biosemiotic powers and transform the brain’s functional organisation. There is no need for language genes, neural spandrels or undiscovered physical principles. Wittgenstein’s (1958) view that language connects living human bodies within forms of life can thus be extended by means of empirical and observational work.

The thesis of this paper is that " biopolitics " in fact means biolinguistics. More specifically, the thesis is that biopolitics – defined as the grip of political power on the human body and life – is but a consequence of the main biological character of Homo sapiens: language. Politics (economics) and religion are but consequences of the basic anthropological fact that human beings are primarily speaking beings, that is, the animals of language. Therefore, from an anthropological perspective the intrinsically biolinguistic nature of human animals is the ground of biopolitics. Every form of dualism (body on one side, psyche, Power, and God on the other) derives from the original dualistic structure of language. In the last part of this paper, an analysis of Agamben's thought about language will argue in favor of this thesis.

This work has been funded by the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación of the Spanish Government (Biolingüística: evolución, desarrollo y fósiles del lenguaje; FFI2010-14955). We wish to thank Sergio Balari and an anonymous reviewer for their comments to early drafts of this note.

The relation between language change and the process of language evolution is controversial in current linguistic theory. Some authors believe that the two processes are completely unrelated, while for others the evolution of language is (at least in part) a consequence of linguistic changes. Both models imply a very different assessment of what is changing when languages themselves change. I present an explicit model of what changes when languages change, and I show that the claim that language change is a crucial factor in explaining the evolution of human language, although suggestive and very popular, faces problems of a theoretical and empirical nature.