This book shows that language, though now routinely used for communication, actually primarily evolved as a system for thought. Anne Reboul proposes a new two-step approach whereby syntax first evolved as a language of thought, which was then externalized for communication due to social selection pressures.

Anne Reboul has a Ph.D in linguistics from EHESS, Paris, and a Ph.D in philosophy from the University of Geneva. She is Senior Researcher at CNRS and co-director of the Institute for Cognitive Sciences-Marc Jeannerod in Lyon. She is interested in pragmatics, language evolution, and artistic practices, and is currently working in experimental pragmatics as part of the EU project AThEME, where she is investigating the impact of L2 learning on pragmatic abilities. She has published widely in French and English, including articles in Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, Studies in Pragmatics, and Pragmatics and Cognition.

• 1: Introduction


• 2: The need for a dual account of language evolution


• 3: The specificify of the human conceptual apparatus


• 4: Merge and the lexicalization of concepts


• 5: A mildly Machiavellian view of communication and the Argumentative Theory of Reasoning


• 6: Conclusion