Towards an evolutionary theory of language

Language is a biological trait that radically changed the performance of on e species and the appearance of the planet. Understanding how human languag e came about is one of the most interesting tasks for evolutionary biology. Here we discuss how natural selection can guide the emergence of some basi c features of human language, including arbitrary signs, words. syntactic c ommunication and grammar. We show how natural selection can lead to the dua lity of patterning of human language: sequences of phonemes form words; seq uences of words form sentences. Finally, we present a framework for the pop ulation dynamics of grammar acquisition, which allows us to study the cultu ral evolution of grammar and the biological evolution of universal grammar.