The role of alignment and communicative interaction in the evolution of the human capacity for language

Abstract

Against the idea that the capacity for language evolved as an isolated feature, we propose that it derives from a set of modifications associated with the evolution of a prosocial way of life in hominids. In particular, we propose that the emergence of grammar results from the stabilization of features selected through interaction, whose reiteration and systematicity derive in the standardization of communicatively effective behaviors. Regularity in the use of these elements allows for the cultural emergence of grammar as a system of rules that externalizes stabilization. Interactive alignment plays a crucial role in this process.