You clearly have no idea what Noam Chomsky believes about language acquisition.
He's only the father of modern Linguistics.
I have no time to take you to nursery school and teach you everything.
I'm sure you are aware of the fallacy of an appeal to authority. Right now, this looks like the laziest appeal to authority I have seen in a while, as you have merely invoked Chomsky without even bothering with the argument.
So I'm afraid that you may have to explain quite how your appeal to Noam Chomsky supports the claim that some theorists hypothesize that the language capacity arose because of a single mutation. He certainly didn't make that claim. And his theory of language acquisition involves invoking a universal grammar. If you want to explain how a single mutation can give rise to a universal generative grammar then I'm all ears.
I gave you a name and what that person believes.
Now you have to do something.
I know for certain I am right.
You do not know anything about this.
Splendid, I can do that. I know enough to know that your gross misunderstanding of Chomsky's work on the evolution of the mechanisms for language comes from your, or at least someone's (mis)reading of his 2015 book 'Why only us?' Fortunately, I have a copy sat in front of me now. Unfortunately that means I'll have to type in the quotes.
Chomsky said:
The clues we have that we discuss just below and later in chapter 4 point in the direction of relatively rapid change, sometime between the period when anatomically modern humans first appeared in Africa about 200,000 years ago, and their subsequent exodus out of Africa 60,000 years ago.
(Why Only Us P36/37) my bold
I make that a period of 140,000 years. That's a very slow mutation...
Chomsky makes an explicit claim on page forty about what must have evolved:
Chomsky said:
Any account of language must come to grips with what has evolved. In our tripartite framework, that works out naturally as each of the three components we sketched earlier: (1) the combinatorial operator Merge along with word-like atomic elements, roughly the "CPU" of human language syntax; and the two interfaces, (2) the sensorimotor interface that is part of language's system for externalisation, including vocal learning and production; and (3) the conceptual - intentional interface, for thought.
(Why Only Us page 40) my bold
So that's three distinct systems none of which are sufficient but all of which are necessary for language use. In a single mutation? I rather think not.
Later in the book, there is an extended discussion of precisely when language developed which concludes that:
Chomsky said:
That leaves us with about 130,000 years, or approximately 5,000 to 6,000 generations of time for evolutionary change. This is not "overnight in one generation" as some have (incorrectly) inferred, but neither is it on the scale of geological eons.
(Why Only Us P157) my bold
Normally I'd assume that the point that a 'single mutation' would be 'overnight in a single generation and thus Chomsky is explicitly stating that you are one of those who has made an incorrect inference (or at least read someone making it).
Moving on to describe the biology that he thinks underpins the change between possessing the basic properties for a Universal Grammar and not, Chomsky focuses on the completion of a ring of fibre tracts that he thinks would allow syntactic processing by instantiating a 'merge' workspace. Now. I'm not going to comment on how credible this idea is, although God knows, I have an opinion.
Instead, I'll merely point out that his conclusion is that:
Chomsky said:
Speculatively, along with the human developmental evidence, this suggests that a fully wired word-like atom to Merge workspace "ring" is necessary to enable the Basic Property. What is the evolutionary point? It's very nearly a literal "Missing Link" While we cannot be certain, if it is indeed the case that human syntax requires a fully wired "ring" then the notion that some "small rewiring of the brain " resulted in a fully fully working syntactic system with Merge might not be so far off the mark. A small genomic change in a growth factor for one of the fibres , along with proper fibre tract guidance, might suffice, and there's certainly enough time for it. This also fits in well with Ramus and Fisher's point(2009) point that a small neural change of this type could lead to large phenotypic consequences - without much evolution required, and not all that much time. (WOU P164) my bold
To avoid confusion, Chomsky asserts that the Basic Property is being able to provide "an unbounded array of hierarchically structured expressions that receive interpretations at two interfaces, sensorimotor for externalization and conceptual-intentional for mental processes" it's basically Universal Grammar lite.
So, to sum up. Your claim is that that some hypothesize that the language capacity arose because of a single mutation. You have made it clear that Noam Chomsky is 'some theorists'. Chomsky is quite clearly arguing that the
final steps of the evolution of a capacity to instantiate a generative grammar could happen really quite rapidly. By 'quite rapidly', he is quite explicit that he means a window of a mere 5-6,000 generations and equally explicit that, and I'll say it again:
This is not "overnight in one generation" as some have (incorrectly) inferred Even if he were arguing that it was a single mutation, which he very explicitly isn't, he's delightfully clear that the closure of the 'fibre ring' is just the final step of a very,very long process across at least three distinct systems that can be traced back to the ancestors of bloody songbirds, or as I like to call them, dinosaurs. That's as far from
you said:
Some hypothesize that the language capacity arose because of a single mutation.
As you can get.
So you might have faith you are right. I have the book you haven't read in my hands. I freely admit that the internet seems to have misunderstood it too, but that's no excuse. Anyone who gets their absolute certainty from secondary sources and doesn't argue their case deserves what happens next.
