1. Introduction: The Problem of Biological Plausibility for Language

Postprint This is the accepted version of a paper published in Language and information society. This paper has been peer-reviewed but does not include the final publisher proof-corrections or journal pagination. Access to the published version may require subscription. The goal of this paper is to discuss some of the conceptual consequences of the arguments put forward in What Darwin Got Wrong, for a broader theory of the biolinguistic approach. The book offers arguments against New Synthesis approaches to Evolutionary Theory, that are particularly germane to biolinguistic matters. One main contention is that only approaches to evolutionary facts that capture the laws of form observed across living organisms can be theoretically and empirically adequate. However, the book does not investigate whether this contention applies to linguistic matters as well. This issue is addressed in the paper, and it is argued that organism-internal properties, which can be captured via the formal notion of conservativity, must be found in language as well. Therefore, it is argued that only those lin-I wish to thank Simone Gozzano, Nobuaki Akagi and Mario di Gregorio as colleagues that inspired to pursue this topic in a more critical perspective than the one I pursued in an earlier draft. I also wish to thank the comments of three anonymous reviewers, who motivated me to address with more rigour certain arguments in the paper. I would also like to thank the editorial board of Language and Information Society for the extensive support during the reviewing and publication process. I dedicate this work to my princess, as always. The usual disclaimers apply. Stockholm Universitet 104 | 19 guistic theories that capture these properties, be they about syntactic, semantic or acquisition matters alike can be considered as biolinguistically plausible.