Evolutionary Pragmatics: Communicative Interaction and the Origins of Language

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Bart Geurts (Professor of the Philosophy of Language and Logic, Professor of the Philosophy of Language and Logic, Radboud University Nijmegen) Richard Moore (Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy, Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy, University of Warwick)

Evolutionary Pragmatics

Communicative Interaction and the Origins of Language

Bart Geurts (Professor of the Philosophy of Language and Logic, Professor of the Philosophy of Language and Logic, Radboud University Nijmegen), Richard Moore (Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy, Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy, University of Warwick)

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English

Oxford University Press
22 July 2025

Psycholinguistics; Human biology

Series: Oxford Studies in the Evolution of Language

This volume explores the new interdisciplinary field of evolutionary pragmatics, which encompasses research on both the evolution of abilities needed for pragmatics and the role of pragmatics in the evolution of language. The biological evolution of linguistic capacities and the cultural evolution of natural languages were both driven by the communicative interactions of our ancestors; since these communicative interactions are the province of pragmatics, evolutionary pragmatics is the cornerstone of the study of the evolution of language.

The chapters in this volume investigate a wide range of pragmatic topics from an evolutionary perspective, including reference, ambiguity, common ground, communicative intentions, and language conventions. The authors also examine a number of topics relating specifically to evolutionary pragmatics, ranging from baboon vocalizations and gestural communication in chimpanzees to formal models of the evolution of signalling systems and the co-evolution of pragmatics and grammar. The range of approaches adopted reflects the interdisciplinary nature of the field, with insights from linguistics, philosophy, psychology, and primatology.

Edited by: Bart Geurts (Professor of the Philosophy of Language and Logic Professor of the Philosophy of Language and Logic Radboud University Nijmegen), Richard Moore (Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy, Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy, University of Warwick)
Imprint: Oxford University Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Volume: 21
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 156mm,
ISBN: 9780192871206
ISBN 10: 019287120X
Series: Oxford Studies in the Evolution of Language
Pages: 336
Publication Date: 22 July 2025
Audience: Professional and scholarly , College/higher education , Undergraduate , Further / Higher Education
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

1: Richard Moore: Intentions in human and non-human great ape communication 2: Suzanne Aussems and Richard Moore: Signal-use and pragmatics in the first natural language users: Kinds of signs 3: Dorit Bar-On: Pragmatically intermediate protolanguage 4: Daniel W. Harris: Gricean communication, natural language, and human evolution 5: Josh Armstrong: The evolutionary foundations of common ground 6: Kirsty E. Graham and Catherine Hobaiter: Pragmatics in ape gesture 7: Paula Rubio-Fernandez: Cultural evolutionary pragmatics: An empirical approach to the relation between language and social cognition 8: Bob van Tiel and Bart Geurts: Conventions, coordination, and arbitrariness 9: Roland Mühlenbernd and Andreas Baumann: Population-level models of evolutionary pragmatics 10: Bart Geurts: Normative pragmatics and social structures: An evolutionary perspective 11: Eva Wittenberg and Ray Jackendoff: The co-evolution of pragmatics and grammatical complexity

Bart Geurts is Professor of the Philosophy of Language and Logic at Radboud University, Nijmegen. His main research interests are in semantic and pragmatic theory, but he has also carried out experimental research and has published on topics related to language development, language change, reasoning, social cognition, and evolution. His many publications include Presupposition and Pronouns (Elsevier, 1999) and Quantity Implicatures (CUP, 2010). Richard Moore is Associate Professor of Philosophy and UKRI Future Leaders Fellow at the University of Warwick, having previously held positions at Humboldt University Berlin and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig. His Communicative Mind research group conducts philosophical and empirical research on the relationship between communication and theory of mind in human and non-human great apes.