As we got smarter and found more things we wanted to communicate, we ran into what Futrell calls a “simplicity bottleneck.”
As we got smarter and found more things we wanted to communicate, we ran into what Futrell calls a “simplicity bottleneck.” We couldn’t just keep adding more words. We didn’t need a lot of linguistic structure when all we needed to communicate was a few distinct calls to warn of predators or to attract a mate or threaten a rival,