No syntax saltation in language evolution

Much of the recent literature within the Minimalist/biolinguistic paradigm argues that the core language faculty, or more specifically 'narrow syntax', arose abruptly and rather recently, certainly within the last 100,000 years. The proposed syntax saltation is taken to be the result of a minor mutation, giving rise to the Merge operation which creates hierarchical structures. Moreover, externalization - using language for communication - is claimed to be a development subsequent to the use of language purely for internal thought. I argue against these claims, both on language-internal grounds, using evidence from the lexicon and from syntactic displacement, and on the basis of the archaeological findings. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.