English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Global: Zendy Free Plan

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

Everett, Blasi, and Roberts in their position paper (Everett et al. 2016, henceforth EBRPP) argue that the sound systems of human languages are ecologically adaptive on the grounds that, (1) human and animal behaviour is ‘generally’ adaptive and (2) that their previous work ‘supports’ the idea that ambient desiccation in the area where a language is spoken leads to the absence of lexical tone (EBRPP: 1).The first point is that it is more reasonable to expect a priori that sound systems of human languages are ecologically adaptive, than to expect the opposite. The authors boldly claim that ‘humans adapt to their ambient conditions at every observed level’ (EBRPP: 1) and follow the theoretical perspective with a number of examples of ecological adaptation from human and animal studies (EBRPP: 2–4). But somewhere here the logical jump from ‘some’ to ‘all’ was lost on the authors. If ecological adaptation can be found on some level it does not follow that sound systems of human languages belong to an adaptive level, or that all other levels are (or should be a priori expected to be) adaptive. To be fair, formulations later are weakened to ‘nearly every observed stratum’ (EBRPP: 1) and ‘nearly every inspected level’ (EBRPP: 2), but even that seems too strong. Should the water divider for a priori categorization not be whether the climatic differences can be argued to have a discernible impact on the human cultural behaviour in question? That is, the a priori question need not be determined by a general rule that stipulates everything to (not?) adapt to climate, but by reasoning about the potential discernible impact given the theoretical specification of climatic differences and nature of some cultural behaviour. Had the authors approached ecological adaptivity in human language with this proviso in mind, they might …

Commentary: There is no demonstrable effect of desiccation