List of figures; Introduction; 1. The faculty of language: what is it, who has it, and how did it evolve? Marc Hauser, Noam Chomsky and W. Tecumseh Fitch; Part I. Language Architecture: 2. Some simple evo-devo theses: how true might they be for language? Noam Chomsky; 3. Your theory of the evolution of language depends on your theory of language Ray Jackendoff; 4. Three meanings of 'recursion': key distinctions for biolinguistics W. Tecumseh Fitch; 5. On obfuscation, obscurantism and opacity: evolving conceptions of the faculty of language Marc Hauser; Part II. Language and Interface Systems: 6. The evolution of anticipatory cognition as a precursor to symbolic communication Peter Gärdenfors and Mathias Osvath; 7. Did language evolve before speech? Michael Corballis; 8. A pragmatic perspective on the evolution of language Dan Sperber and Gloria Origgi; Part III. Biological and Neurological Foundations: 9. Canalization and plasticity in the evolution of linguistic communication: an evolutionary-developmental approach Daniel Dor and Eva Jablonka; 10. What is language, that it might have evolved, and what is evolution that is may apply to language? Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini; 11. The creative capacity of language, in what manner is it unique, and who had it? Philip Lieberman; 12. Genetics and the evolution of language: what genetic studies reveal about the evolution of language Karin Stromswold; Part IV. Anthropological Context: 13. A putative role for language in the origin of human consciousness Ian Tattersall; 14. On two incompatible theories of language evolution Derek Bickerton; 15. On the evolution of language: implications of a new and general theory of human evolution, properties and history Paul Bingham; Notes; Index.