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Syntax Before Semantics, Structure Before Content (Book Review Of Carstairs-Mccarthy On Language-Origins), Daniel Hutto

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

Carstairs-McCarthy's book sets out a bold proposal that constitutes an exciting challenge to the idea that the development of modern syntax was driven by the contentful divisions of language. Instead he posits a physiological cause in order to explain why the core aspects of modern syntax are as they are. It is a great virtue of the book that it carefully reviews a vast interdisciplinary literature encompassing biology, anthropology, neuroscience and the study of apes to support this startling hypothesis. Moreover, the author does a good job of raising doubts about the handful of views that would otherwise contradict it. …