000071004 001__ 71004 000071004 005__ 20180622124306.0 000071004 0247_ $$2doi$$a10.3389/fcomm.2018.00024 000071004 0248_ $$2sideral$$a106140 000071004 037__ $$aART-2018-106140 000071004 041__ $$aeng 000071004 100__ $$aMendívil Giró, José Luis 000071004 245__ $$aWhy don’t Languages Adapt to their Environment? 000071004 260__ $$c2018 000071004 5060_ $$aAccess copy available to the general public$$fUnrestricted 000071004 5203_ $$aThe issue of whether languages adapt to their environment depends on our understanding of language, adaptation, and environment. I consider these three concepts from an internalist or biolinguistic point of view. If adaptation is defined as the result of the differential transmission of phenotypic traits by means of natural selection, then both natural species and languages are adapted. Recall that according to Darwin's own insight, the evolutionary mechanisms for species and languages are “curiously the same” (or “curiously parallel”). However, if the concept of adaptation entails that the environment is the essential source of the structure of evolving objects, then neither natural species nor languages can be said to be adapted to their environment. In the case of languages, I will argue that much of their structure is insensitive to historical change and, therefore, incapable of adaptation to the external environment. The immediate environment of languages is in fact internal to the mind/brain and is thus less variable than the social and physical environment in which people live. On the other hand, the dimensions of languages that are variable have such an indirect relation with the physical and social environment that the notion of adaptation to extra-linguistic reality can only be applied weakly, and then it is unable to explain the main patterns of linguistic structural diversity. 000071004 536__ $$9info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/MINECO-FEDER/FFI2017-82460-P 000071004 540__ $$9info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess$$aby$$uhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/es/ 000071004 655_4 $$ainfo:eu-repo/semantics/article$$vinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion 000071004 773__ $$g3, 24 (2018), 1-10$$pFront. Commun.$$tFrontiers in Communication 000071004 8564_ $$s669598$$uhttps://zaguan.unizar.es/record/71004/files/texto_completo.pdf$$yVersión publicada 000071004 8564_ $$s11510$$uhttps://zaguan.unizar.es/record/71004/files/texto_completo.jpg?subformat=icon$$xicon$$yVersión publicada 000071004 909CO $$ooai:zaguan.unizar.es:71004$$particulos$$pdriver 000071004 951__ $$a2018-06-22-11:08:15 000071004 980__ $$aARTICLE