Part Of: Language sequence
See Also: Linear Grammar
Adapted From: Jean-Louis Dessalles (2007). Why We Talk
Content Summary: 1200 words, 6 min read

Linear Grammar as Crude Predication.

Protolanguage as a Vestige (Fossilized Competence). Bickerton sees protolanguage as a fossil, a behavourial vestige with which each of us is endowed. We are able, effortlessly and instantaneously, to adopt a pidgin form of speech, using words from our native language. Without the slightest reflexion, words come to us naturally, in an approximate order; we just spontaneously omit grammatical words, articles, prepositions, relative pronouns, markers of tense or aspect. In Bickerton’s view, this reveals the presence of a fossilized competence, an innate expertise which was once the normal form of communication among members of Homo erectus, the species from which our own derived. It is a vestige of their speech that survives in us and which we can fall back on at times when expression through normal speech is impossible.

The arbitrariness of sign. Ray Jackendoff suggests that the single-word stage represents a functional state of communication among our ancestors (Jackendoff 1999). He points out that a fundamental property of human words is that they are not attached to a particular situation, unlike the call of an animal which is. For instance, the cry that a chimpanzee utters to announce the presence of food will not be the one uttered to urge its fellows to go and fetch the food, whereas an infant will indiscriminately use the word cat or an equivalent of it to mark the presence of a cat, to enquire where the cat is, to call it, to indicate that something looks like a cat, and so on (Jackendoff 1999). The reason why some authors like Jackendoff or Deacon see the relaxing of the signified-signifier link as a decisive moment in the evolutionary history of language is no doubt that at one and the same time it originates ambiguity and semantics. Meaning ceases to be a simple reflex association and requires some cognitive processing. A system of communication in which every speech consists of one word and in which every word is essentially ambiguous becomes the simplest system using semantics.

Protolanguage evolved to report salience. Speakers belonging to the species from which we descend probably did as we do when we try to impress people by being the first to bring genuine news of salient situations when they arise. So M’s initial statement in the preceding example resembles the sort of thing that might have occasioned speech among our ancestors. This is a type of behaviour that each of us indulges in several times a day, and is no doubt one of the things which we share with our Homo erectus ancestors and perhaps also with their predecessors. The argument put forward in this chapter has been that protolanguage evolved in the service of this behaviour of reporting salient situations.

Syntax as Sophisticated Predication.

Any addressee hearing BREAD TABLE will visualize, given the context, a new loaf lying on the table. As protolanguage does not express a spatial relation between bread and table, that relation remains implicit. One feature of language is that it does express relations and properties: THE BREAD ON THE TABLE expresses a spatial relation between two entities; THE RUNNER WINS expresses that the property ‘winning’ applies to the runner. Relations and properties are generally represented by predicates. We will use the formulae On(Bread, Table) and Win(Runner) to represent the meanings of the two examples.

Protolanguage is not completely unhelpful when it comes to expressing predicates: to express Win(Runner) it is perfectly possible to say RUNNER WIN. It suffices to state the relations and properties and to express their arguments contiguously. This expressive power of protolanguage may suggest that predicative semantics appeared in the absence of syntax, contra Bickerton. But  language is better adapted than protolanguage to the expression of predicates. The devices of syntax are more effective than those offered by protolanguage for dealing with predication

The words of language, except proper nouns attached to definite entities, express predicates. Thus the word BOOK does not represent a definite entity in the perceived environment, but a property that entities in our environment may or may not possess. In contrast to the words of language, which express predicates, it can be said that the words of protolanguage behave more like proper nouns.

Predication as puzzle solving. Prepositions, complementizer phrases, or even common nouns make no direct reference. Through their expression of predication, they afford hearers a way to determine for themselves which entity is meant. As they do this, hearers are resolving a kind of equation. The phrase THE GREEN BOOK will make them seek in the perceived context for an entity x for which Book(x) & Green(x) = True. In this way, predication is used indirectly to make reference.

Syntax, like Predication, is Recursive.

This mechanism of this sort leads inevitably to a recursive system. For example, in the sentence 

(1) Paul’s brother buys the book that John got from Jack’s sister, 

at least three levels of predication may be observed: Buy (x, y); Brother(x, Paul), Book(y), Get(John, y, z); and Sister (z, Jack). It is only the first level that constitutes an assertion. The later levels are used recursively for the determination of the arguments at the preceding levels. Semantic recursion is rather like a set of Matryoshka dolls: as long as there are more dolls inside a doll, it must be opened, since they all contain elements facilitating the determination of arguments. But dolls are also like dolls: every predication contains arguments; every argument can go into a new predicate which helps determine it, and so on. This is a perspective that gives a rather fractal image of semantics, like a snow crystal which stays identical at all degrees of enlargement.

An alternative to syntax. A possible solution would be to use a number of variables to designate the shared arguments:

(1’)  x bought y; x is Paul’s brother; y is a book; John got y from z; z is the sister of Jack. 

This procedure consists of using unambiguous variables to identify the arguments of the predicates, while being sure to use the same name whenever the variable designates the same entity. These five predicates can be expressed in any order. 

Evolution might have endowed us with the ability to cope with an efficient system of variables, such as at (1′), capable of expressing the links between predicates. The fact is, though, that human beings do not spontaneously express themselves in that way. They use syntax based on the assembling of phrases. If we compare sentences (1′) with (1), the solution devised by evolution for the expressing of semantic relations does not seem the worst possible. The real problem with a system of variables is that it is bothersome and repetitious. And it is a problem that can be avoided by expressing semantic relations through the assembling of phrases.