Huijbregts’s commentary1¹ about our paper (Blasi et al. 2019) gives us the opportunity to highlight an ongoing problem in the investigation of language evolution that has hindered its research since the 19th century: the lack of engagement with empirical data. This problem stems partially from the issue of how language is defined, and consequently, how researchers engage in meaningful evolutionary investigations. First, we discuss this general issue and then we will assess Huijbregts’s lack of engagement with empirical data and the state-of-the art with regard to his comments on phonetics and phonology.

中文翻译：

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与Huijbregts的重新结合：咬住语言的演变

Huijbregts对我们论文的评论^{1 1}（Blasi et al.2019 ）使我们有机会强调语言进化研究中一个持续存在的问题，该问题自19世纪以来一直阻碍其研究：缺乏对经验数据的参与。这个问题部分源于语言的定义方式，以及研究人员如何进行有意义的进化研究。首先，我们讨论这个一般性问题，然后我们将评估Huijbregts缺乏对经验数据的参与以及关于他对语音和语音学的评论的最新技术。