The course aims to provide students with the basic knowledge about the modern theories of language origins. Starting from the comparison between human language and animal communication, two theoretical proposals will be discussed: on the one hand, the hypothesis according to which human language derives from the communication systems of non-human animals (of the great apes, specifically); on the other, the hypothesis according to which animal communication is not a precursor of human faculty of language.

At the end of the course the student:

- will acquire the basic concepts of the theoretical models of language proposed in the field of evolutionary studies.
- Will be able to distinguish the theses advanced by the authors from the arguments used to support such theses, and will be able to provide a correct reconstruction of these arguments