Grammaticalization—a human faculty?

We argued in “Early language Layers” that without grammaticalization, early language would not have proceeded beyond the lexical layers I and II. And grammaticalization is also responsible for the rise of the recursive morphosyntactic structures that we discussed:¹ Wherever there is appropriate diachronic evidence it turns out that head–modifier constructions arise via grammaticalization, and so does clause subordination. These two kinds of structures, hierarchical noun modification and clause subordination, are paradigm manifestations of recursive structures—hence the latter can ultimately be interpreted as a by-product of grammaticalization. Grammaticalization is thus suggestive of an elementary human activity or ‘‘faculty’’.

But does such a ‘‘faculty’’ also surface in types of languages that have been described as restricted linguistic systems, such as pidgins, basic varieties, Nicaraguan Sign Language, twins’ languages, or homesigns?² That grammaticalization is in fact instrumental in shaping pidgins has been demonstrated: Those pidgins that develop further after having passed beyond what we described as the ‘‘stripping’’ process tend to acquire new grammatical categories on the basis of the parameters that we defined in “Methodology”. Speakers of Kenya Pidgin Swahili were found to have created an array of new functional categories, and much the same applies to speakers of extended pidgins such as Tok Pisin, Solomons Pijin, or Ghanaian and Nigerian Pidgin English.

There is at least some evidence that grammaticalization parameters are also made use of by the creators of basic varieties (i.e. the Basic Variety), that is, linguistic systems arising in specific situations of untutored late second language acquisition. For example, verbs for ‘finish’ are commonly used as boundary markers, as in work finish ‘after work is/was/will be over’, and demonstratives may function as definiteness markers (Klein and Perdue 1992, 1997: 318, 321; Perdue 1996). Both the development from verbs meaning ‘finish’ to completive markers and from demonstrative attributes to markers of definiteness are crosslinguistically common path-ways of grammaticalization, as we saw in (“The second layer: verbs”, The fourth layer: demonstratives, adpositions, aspects, and negation); we are, however, not aware of cases where grammaticalization was carried to completion in basic varieties.

There are also a few indications of grammaticalization in Nicaraguan Sign Language, which appeared after the Sandinista government was elected in 1979 (Kegl and McWhorter 1997; Kegl, Senghas, and Coppola 1999; Senghas 1995, 2000; Senghas and Coppola 2001; Senghas et al. 1997; Senghas, Kita, and Özyürek 2004; Morford 2002). While there is no evidence for it in the rudimentary gestural system of the first cohort, the elaborated sign language of the second cohort that evolved after 1985 is suggestive of some kind of grammaticalization. Morford (2002: 333, 337) argues that there is both what she calls innovation and ‘‘grammaticization’’ in Nicaraguan Sign language. With the former term she refers to the process whereby individuals who had no exposure to language create within a single grammar ‘‘system-internal grammatical properties’’, whereas ‘‘grammaticization’’ follows the automation of language processing in subsequent generations of users, leading, for example, to the rise of classifiers, serial verb constructions, and compounds as ‘‘instances of processing-dependent properties’’. Such properties, especially the rise of classifiers, might be taken to reflect grammaticalization, although the data provided are not really sufficient to establish that they are.

This situation contrasts with that found in other restricted linguistic systems: As we saw in “Other restricted systems”, there is no clear indication of grammaticalization in homesign systems, twins’ languages, isolated children (that is, children raised intentionally in social isolation), or in non-human animals. While some animals acquired form–meaning pairings that can be interpreted as equivalents of functional categories in human languages, such as markers for negation, interrogation, or deixis, the acquisition of such items was not based on parameters of grammaticalization; rather, these items appear to have been learned in the interaction between animal and human trainer in much the same way as lexical form–meaning pairings.

An answer to why grammaticalization is essentially absent in homesigns, twins’ languages, isolated children, and non-human animals has been volunteered in “An elementary linguistic system?”: Grammaticalization requires a linguistic system that (a) is used regularly and frequently within a community of speakers and (b) is passed on from one group of speakers to another (or from one generation to the next). Clearly, this applies to none of these forms of communication, with the possible exception of homesigns spoken in village communities. Accordingly, when Nicaraguan Sign Language developed from a kind of homesign system of the first cohort to an elaborated sign language within the second cohort, this appears to have triggered grammaticalization. And this also accounts for why neither homesigners, twins’ language speakers, isolated children, nor non-human animals acquired recursive structures:³ There were no appropriate pragmatic (or sociolinguistic) conditions for grammaticalization to arise, and since grammaticalization is a prerequisite for recursive structures to arise, there is also no recursion—at least not as a morphosyntactic phenomenon.

We argued above that grammaticalization might be suggestive of a human ‘‘faculty’’. But this suggestion is in need of qualification. First, we found no evidence for it in some forms of human linguistic communication, viz. in certain restricted linguistic systems. Second, it may well be that apes and other animals are able to grammaticalize and that it is only the lack of an appropriate pragmatic environment, as defined above, that has so far prevented them from doing so. Accordingly, future research might establish that grammaticalization is not a distinctly human faculty. And third, our analysis is restricted to some linguistic manifestations of cognitive abilities. It is quite possible that, given a wider range of knowledge about both human and non-human cognition, the ontological status of grammaticalization needs to be re-defined.

¹ As we observed in “Animal cognition”, grammaticalization is a necessary requirement for recursive structure to arise, but it is not a sufficient one; what is required in addition is an understanding of conceptual taxonomic hierarchy, as it manifests itself in particular in the relationship between inclusive and included phenomena.

² See Botha (2003a, 2003b, 2005, 2005/6) for a definition and discussion of restricted linguistic systems.

³ Note that we are restricted to linguistic manifestations of embedding recursion. Goldin-Meadow and Mylander (1990: 348) found that all ten children of their study could form ‘‘complex sentences’’ by combining gestures into at least two propositions, mostly involving a temporal sequence of events, and these authors therefore conclude that the deaf children exhibit the property of recursion in their gesture systems. This ability is suggestive of iteration, while we have found no clues that there is embedding recursion in homesigns; see “Embedding, iteration, and succession”.

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مواضيع ذات صلة

The passive construction

The verb string: tense, aspect and mood

Grammatical functions and case

Early language Conclusions

Looking for answers

Did language arise abruptly?

The status of tree diagrams

Constituency: heads and dependents

Word classes

Core issues in grammar: comparing cognitive and generative accounts

Functional-typological approaches to grammar

Cognitive versus generative models