Machine generated contents note: Introduction: New perspectives on an old academic question -- Jiirgen Trabant 1 -- 1. Biological aspects of the question -- On the subcortical bases of the evolution of language -- Philip Lieberman 21 -- Origin of the human language faculty: the language amoeba hypothesis -- Eors Szathmdry 41 -- 2. The first language -- The apparent paradox of language evolution: can Universal Grammar be -- explained by adaptive selection? -- Manfred Bierwisch 55 -- Elementary forms of linguistic organisation -- Wolfgang Klein 81 -- From potential to realisation: an episode in the origin of language -- Bernard Comrie 103 -- Protothought had no logical names -- James R. Hurford 119 -- The birth of rules -- Jean Aitchison 133 -- How language changed the genes: toward an explicit account of the -- evolution of language -- Daniel Dor and Eva Jablonka 149 -- 3. Beyond biolinguistics -- The narration "instinct": signalling behaviour, communication, -- and the selective value of storytelling -- Volker Heeschen 179 -- Taxonomic controversies in the twentieth century -- Merritt Ruhlen 197 -- The origin of origins: a play in five acts, with a prologue -- im Himmel and an epilogue auf der Erde -- Henri Meschonnic 215 -- References 229 -- Index 257.