ABSTRACT
All theorising about the origins and evolution of language rests on a distinction that, by and large, is regarded as so obvious that it virtually goes without saying. It is that by ‘language’, in this context, is meant not any particular language, as spoken presently or in the past by members of some human community, but a capacity that is manifestly common to all human beings, and that is surely one of the hallmarks of our species. Interactionism describes development as an unfolding relation between genes and environment. In this relation, however, it is the genes that are supposed to hold the essence of form, whereas the environment is conceived merely to furnish the material conditions for its realisation.
