Spiegazioni evoluzionistiche del linguaggio tra linguistica e biologia: il caso exaptation

Pievani & Serrelli (2011) assessed how "exaptation" has been welcomed in the various fields of human evolution. The present essay expands the review to works that address articulate language and come to "exaptive" explanations of its origin. With the occasion, we remark methodologically the core of exaptation, i.e. change of function, as distinct from other correlated problems, such as abruptness of change or discontinuity of its products. A useful analogy to understand these aspects is Roger Lass's approach to "morphological junk" in linguistics. In the conclusion, we sketch out a general outlook on the analyzed wotks. They converge upon the more and more corroborated and detailed hypothesis that articulated language, like many other complex characters, is a further example of evolutionary bricolage. Studying language in this perspective can still reach many results