Syntax Facit Saltum Redux: Biolinguistics and the Leap to Syntax

نویسنده

  • ROBERT C. BERWICK
چکیده

I have been astonished how rarely an organ can be named, towards which no transitional grade is known to lead. The truth of this remark is indeed shown by that old canon in natural history of Natura non facit saltum. We meet with this admission in the writings of almost every experienced naturalist; or, as Milne Edwards has well expressed it, nature is prodigal in variety, but niggard in innovation. Why, on the theory of Creation, should this be so? . . . Why should not Nature have taken a leap from structure to structure? On the theory of natural selection, we can clearly understand why she should not; for natural selection can act only by taking advantage of slight successive variations; she can never take a leap, but must advance by the shortest and slowest steps. (Darwin 1859: 194)

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تاریخ انتشار 2014