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Protolanguage reconstructed

Abstract

One important difference between existing accounts of protolanguage lies in their assumptions on the semantic complexity of protolinguistic utterances. I bring evidence about the nature of linguistic communication to bear on the plausibility of these assumptions, and show that communication is fundamentally inferential and characterised by semantic uncertainty. This not only allows individuals to maintain variation in linguistic representation, but also imposes a selection pressure that meanings be reconstructible from context. I argue that protolanguage utterances had varying degrees of semantic complexity, and developed into complex language gradually, through the same processes of re-analysis and analogy which still underpin continual change in modern languages.

Abstract

One important difference between existing accounts of protolanguage lies in their assumptions on the semantic complexity of protolinguistic utterances. I bring evidence about the nature of linguistic communication to bear on the plausibility of these assumptions, and show that communication is fundamentally inferential and characterised by semantic uncertainty. This not only allows individuals to maintain variation in linguistic representation, but also imposes a selection pressure that meanings be reconstructible from context. I argue that protolanguage utterances had varying degrees of semantic complexity, and developed into complex language gradually, through the same processes of re-analysis and analogy which still underpin continual change in modern languages.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Preface vii
  4. Is a holistic protolanguage a plausible precursor to language? A test case for a modern evolutionary linguistics 1
  5. Proto-discourse and the emergence of compositionality 19
  6. Protolanguage in ontogeny and phylogeny: Combining deixis and representation 35
  7. From metonymy to syntax in the communication of events 51
  8. The "complex first" paradox: Why do semantically thick concepts so early lexicalize as nouns? 67
  9. Holophrastic protolanguage: Planning, processing, storage, and retrieval 83
  10. Protolanguage reconstructed 99
  11. Growth points from the very beginning 117
  12. The roots of linguistic organization in a new language 133
  13. Holophrasis and the protolanguage spectrum 153
  14. But how did protolanguage actually start ? 167
  15. Name index 175
  16. Subject index 179
The Emergence of Protolanguage
This chapter is in the book The Emergence of Protolanguage
https://doi.org/10.1075/bct.24.07smi

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Preface vii
  4. Is a holistic protolanguage a plausible precursor to language? A test case for a modern evolutionary linguistics 1
  5. Proto-discourse and the emergence of compositionality 19
  6. Protolanguage in ontogeny and phylogeny: Combining deixis and representation 35
  7. From metonymy to syntax in the communication of events 51
  8. The "complex first" paradox: Why do semantically thick concepts so early lexicalize as nouns? 67
  9. Holophrastic protolanguage: Planning, processing, storage, and retrieval 83
  10. Protolanguage reconstructed 99
  11. Growth points from the very beginning 117
  12. The roots of linguistic organization in a new language 133
  13. Holophrasis and the protolanguage spectrum 153
  14. But how did protolanguage actually start ? 167
  15. Name index 175
  16. Subject index 179
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