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Cole, Hermon, and Yanti (2015) present a number of far-reaching conclusions about language universals on the basis of their study of the anaphoric systems of the Austronesian languages of Indonesia. The present contribution critically assesses these conclusions. It reports a further set of data, and shows that contra to what these authors argue, the systems they discuss can be straightforwardly accounted for by a simple set of universal principles plus properties of the vocabulary of the languages involved. I conclude this article with some remarks on acquisition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

This article provides a functional analysis of the conditions for language to emerge, and analyzes its role in imagination. It starts with some initial reflections on imagination and its evolutionary beginnings in relation to the role of working memory and tool use by chimpanzees and humans up to modernity. It then presents an analysis of what it takes to develop language, and how language gives rise to higher orders of imagination. An important theme in the discussion is which of the changes in the development leading to language may have been gradual and which changes must reflect a discontinuity. It concludes with a paradoxical property of imagination: One part of our mind is able to imagine and create systems that another part of our mind is unable to deal with. It shows how this tension manifests itself in the notion of an impossible language, but crucially also in conceptions of human society at large. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...