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Bartering old stone tools: When did communicative ability and conceptual structure begin to interact?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 February 2010

Stephen F. Walker
Affiliation:
Center for Life Sciences, Birkbeck College. London, WC1E 7HX, Englandubjta25@cu.bbk.ac.uk

Abstract

Wilkins & Wakefield are clearly right to separate linguistic capacity from communicative ability, if only because other animal species have one without the other. But I question the abruptness of the demarcation they make between a period when hominids evolved enriched conceptual representation for other reasons entirely, and a subsequent later stage when language use became an adaptation.

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Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

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