Introduction

There are two classes of nontrivial questions in science: those that are in principle answerable and those that are not. Most questions discussed in this volume belong to the former category, although one might argue that some, such as the instantiation of language in the brain, may lie beyond our rational powers (cf. Chomsky 1968: 78–9). The question addressed in this chapter, however, belongs to the second category, and that being the case, one might reasonably ask why consider it at all. Indeed, as is well known, the Société de Linguistique de Paris passed a by-law in 1866 banning all consideration of the origin of language.

If there were no framework available for investigating the evolution of complex behaviors such as human communication, and furthermore, if we lacked any empirical data base relevant to such an investigation, we might indeed be inclined to support what Stam (1976) refers to as the ‘annihilation of the question.’ However, as can be seen from Table 1, we do not lack data upon which to base our investigations.