Spike, Matthew2019-04-301572-8404http://hdl.handle.net/1885/160780Rule-like behaviour is found throughout human language, provoking a number of apparently conflicting explanations. This paper frames the topic in terms of Tinbergen's four questions and works within the context of rule-like behaviour seen both in nature and the non-linguistic domain in humans. I argue for a minimal account of linguistic rules which relies on powerful domain-general cognition, has a communicative function allowing for multiple engineering solutions, and evolves mainly culturally, while leaving the door open for some genetic adaptation in the form of learning biases.application/pdfen-AU© Springer Science+Business Media B.V., part of Springer Nature 2018201710.1007/s10539-018-9610-x2019-03-12