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Abstract

A modular analysis of spontaneous language use provides support for the existence of an identifiable step in language evolution, protolanguage. Our suggestion is that a grammarless form of expression would have evolved to signal unexpected events, a behavior still prevalent in our species. Words could not be so specific as to refer to whole, non-recurring, situations. They referred to elements such as objects or locations, and the communicated event was inferred metonymically. Compositionality was achieved, without syntax, through multi-metonymy, as words referring to elements of the same situation were concatenated into proto-utterances.

Keywords: compositionality, evolution, metonymy, pragmatics, protolanguage, relevance

@article{dessalles08fromMetonymyToSyntax,
  author={Jean-Louis Dessalles},
  title={From metonymy to syntax in the communication of events},
  journal={Interaction Studies},
  year={2008},
  volume={9},
  number={1},
  pages={51-65},
  url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/dessalles08fromMetonymyToSyntax.html},
  keywords={compositionality, evolution, metonymy, pragmatics, protolanguage, relevance}
}