The present volume

While previous work on language origin has been preoccupied in particular with the precursors and human-specific origins of language (Fritz Newmeyer, p.c.), our interest is primarily with subsequent development of language; we aim to reconstruct some major lines of grammatical evolution from its beginnings. Our concern will be with the questions listed in (1), and in “Looking for answers” we will look for answers to these questions. More specifically, however, the kind of questions that we will try to answer are the following: (a) How do functional categories arise? (b) What are the mechanisms to be held responsible for their rise? (c) What can all that tell us about the genesis and evolution of language? To this end, we have described in “Grammaticalization” the methodology to be used.

An important issue in any research on language evolution concerns the question of whether human communication can be linked to communication systems of non-human animals. To this end, we will try to determine whether there are any language-like abilities in animals and, if yes, what they can tell us about language genesis. Animal behavior has played an important role in discussions on early human language, but there is another phenomenon that has also frequently figured in such discussions, namely pidgin languages and other restricted linguistic systems. We have therefore decided to reserve for these communication systems, which are widely held to provide some kind of analog to early language.

A crucial step in the evolution of language must have been the rise of clause subordination. This topic is closely linked to the question of recursion. And finally, we will propose a general scenario of how human languages evolved, and we will relate our hypotheses to those volunteered by other students of language evolution. Finally, we will deal with the questions that we listed rarlier, providing answers wherever that is possible within the framework of grammaticalization theory.

We noted in the introduction that the scope is a narrow one. We will not make any claims on theoretical issues such as whether there is, or when there arose, something like Universal Grammar, whether language is, or is part of, a distinct human faculty, is an organ, or a system, or whether language—however defined—is an entity that needs to be separated from some kind of cognitive faculty or capacity, nor with the question of whether or to what extent language is innately determined. Rather, we will simply be concerned with analyzing language structures as they manifest themselves in day-to-day interactions among their speakers, and as they are documented in grammatical descriptions. Accordingly, all we have to say about language genesis and evolution is based on typological generalizations on language structures. And even more narrowly, our goal is with applying typological observations made within the framework of grammaticalization theory to the reconstruction of earlier stages of linguistic evolution.

When working on specific reconstructions we found it tempting to adopt a cross-disciplinary perspective, immediately looking for evidence from other approaches or disciplines that might support our hypotheses, or discussing other views in relation to our findings. However, we decided not to do so but rather to confine ourselves strictly to our methodology, for the following reasons: First, we wish to avoid being biased by what

other specialists have to say about the issues that we are dealing with, and second, we consider it important to keep the findings made by people working with different frameworks or theories separate in order to make sure that these findings can each be independently verified or falsified. This, however, in no way means that we are not interested in what other people do and what other theories have to offer; primatology, palaeo-anthropology, evolutionary biology, neurosciences, psychology, psycho linguistics, computer sciences, philosophy, and other disciplines are all relevant for reconstructing language genesis. As we hope to demonstrate, our ultimate goal is to contribute to an interdisciplinary understanding of what language evolution is about.

Language structure is conveniently divided into various components, which are phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics. We will be concerned with all of these components in some way or other—except for phonology. This omission may be justified by the fact that there are systems of linguistic communication, such as signed languages, that lack vocal phonology. However, this is not the reason for ignoring phonology; rather, it is the fact that phonology is essentially not within the scope of grammaticalization theory; hence, we will have little to say about it.

Finally, there is another serious omission in our analysis of early language: Our approach is restricted to linguistic methodology, and we will not deal with the cognitive and neurological foundations of language evolution. The main reason for this is that we did not find any convincing evidence to establish that during the timespan we are concerned with, that is, the latest period of human evolution, possibly after the appearance of Homo sapiens, changes in the size and/or capacity of the brain affected linguistic communication in any significant way (see MacWhinney 2002: 250). We are aware that, given a more advanced stage of brain studies, this assumption might be in need of revision.

The linguistic materials are frequently taken from African languages. This might seem appropriate considering that our concern is with the earliest forms of human language or languages, and Africa is commonly assumed to be the continent where both our species and our languages originated. As a matter of fact, however, this would not be an entirely convincing reason: We have found no evidence to suggest that African languages are in any way of special interest for the reconstruction of the prehistory of our species or languages, at least no more than any other languages in the world. The reason for drawing heavily on African languages is simply that these are the languages we are most familiar with. Even the fact that much of our Weld research has focused on languages of ‘‘archaic’’ hunter-gatherer societies such as Khoisan in southwestern Africa and Okiek (Dorobo) in eastern Africa does not turn out to be particularly rewarding since there is no convincing evidence to establish that the structure of these languages is in any way more closely linked to what may have characterized earlier forms of linguistic communication.

Awordonouruseof the term evolution may be in order. This term has received a wide range of different applications. Within linguistics, it has been employed variously for changes in the history of human language, the history of a given language or of languages, the history of a specific component of a language, or for changes towards a more ‘‘progressive’’ state of language or languages, for example an increase in structural complexity. Furthermore, there are more specific uses of the term, such as that by Nichols (1992: 276), who employs it to refer to the approximation to a standard profile in residual zones. And in works on grammaticalization, the term has been used for any crosslinguistic regularity in change as it can be observed in grammaticalization (see especially Bybee, Perkins, and Pagliuca 1994).

Our use of the term is based on the general definition proposed by Darwin ([1859] 1964), for whom evolution simply was ‘‘descent with modification’’. Accordingly, we will talk of ‘‘evolution’’ when any significant modification in the overall structure of human languages from early language to the modern languages is hypothesized to have taken place. This means that we will avoid the term for any of the many other uses it has been put to, including the one it has acquired in some grammaticalization studies. In doing so, we hope to avoid some of the misunderstandings that the term has given rise to in the past.

اخر الاخبار

اخبار العتبة العباسية المقدسة

تستمر طيلة شهر رمضان.. إقامة ختمة قرآنية تعليمية في مقام الإمام المهدي (عجل الله فرجه)

في مستشفى الكفيل.. جراحة دقيقة بين الأذن والدماغ تنقذ مريضة من التهاب حاد

المجمع العلمي يُطلق مسابقة (فرسان التنزيل الفرقية الأولى) ويقيم ختمات قرآنية في محافظة المثنى

ضمن أنشطته الإنسانية.. قسم الشؤون الفكرية يفتتح البئر الـ 72 في نيجيريا

المزيد

الآخبار الصحية

دراسة تحذر من الإفراط في ممارسة الرياضة.. كيف يضر دماءك؟

الطهي بزيت الزيتون.. مضر أم مفيد؟

دماغ الرضع في خطر.. دراسة تحذر من "العدو الخفي"

التمر بالحليب عند الإفطار.. "كنز صحي" في رمضان

المزيد

الآخبار التكنلوجية

أثر نفسي غير متوقع للرياضة.. مرتبط بالغضب

القمر يواصل الانكماش.. رصد تشققات حديثة على سطحه

إطلاق أول تطبيق مراسلة "مشفّر".. ثورة في عالم الدردشة

خلل تقني يؤجّل أول رحلة مأهولة إلى القمر منذ عقود

المزيد

مواضيع ذات صلة

Marked coding: the passive construction

Case

Grammatical functions and transitivity

Valence at the clause level

Clauses

An outline of grammatical evolution Introduction

Problems

Grammatical morphemes and agreement

Constructional schemas

Composite structure

Prototypical stems and affixes

Semantic autonomy and dependence