Abstract
Abstract There is an abundant literature on what distinguishes human languages from forms of animal communication, and there is considerable disagreement on what does and what does not (see e.g. Pinker and Jackendoff 2005; Givón 2002a, 2005). But what surfaces in some of the recent literature on language evolution is that if there is one property that is really unique to human languages then that is recursion (Hauser, Chomsky, and Fitch 2002; see also Coolidge and Wynn 2006). It is widely held that recursion belongs to the basic universals of language and that there do not appear to exist analogs in non-human communication in the wording of Bicker ton (2005: 9): Syntax without recursion and movement is about as viable as Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark.
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