1 Introduction
This short chapter develops a hypothesis that claims that the human language
faculty (Merge/UG) as a genetic endowment emerged much earlier than has
often been assumed: at the latest, 130–150 thousand years ago (kya). It is
argued that the convergence of archaeological/paleoanthropological and genetic
evidence supports this claim (Ike-uchi 2012, 2014).
We use the following two basic assumptions/frameworks to address the
problems of the origins and evolution of human language.
First, we assume the single origin hypothesis of Homo sapiens and assume
that anatomically modern humans first appeared in East Africa around 200 kya.
We are all descendants of these early humans. This hypothesis, I assume, is a
widely accepted view.
Second, our hypothesis will be developed within the framework of the recent
minimalist program of generative grammar. Based on recent discussions (e.g.,
H auser et al. 2002, C homsky 2013, 2 015, and Fujita 2013), as a kind of pos-
sible “idealization,” I assume that human UG consists only of Merge, i.e., the
so-called Merge-only hypothesis. However, I do not necessarily exclude the
possibility that there are other operations of core syntax in UG. One strong
candidate is Inheritance. With regard to the two other operations, i.e., Transfer
and Labeling, I assume that they are not core syntactic operations (but see
B ošković 2015 on the latter), essentially following C homsky (2013, 2 015).
I assume that Agree is not a biologically evolved product.
As has often been noted, the more UG devices are posited, the more com-
plicated their evolutionary processes are. Hence, if Inheritance is an indispensable
core UG operation, then the question of how and when UG emerged becomes
more difficult and produces more ramifications. For instance, we will need to
consider the problem of the timing of the emergence of at least two operations,
Merge and Inheritance. I believe that the solution to this problem is unreach-
able at the current stage of inquiry of evolutionary linguistics. Hence, in this
chapter, as a type of idealization, I assume the Merge-only hypothesis. In other
words, we would say that if Merge and Inheritance are both in UG, then they
simultaneously emerged in human evolution.