Language and Culture Prof. R. Hickey ss 2006 The evolution of language

Consistent ordering of words

• There are several possibilities as to how a firm word order might have happened in the evolution of languages
• the signing of chimps
• the utterances of Vincent, a child of deaf parents
• the predispositions of the human mind

1. The signing of chimps - Nim Chimpsky

• At first sight Nim’s signing was quite unordered.
• However Nim had some preferences:
• -- food was placed first: “grape eat, banana Nim eat, apple
• me eat”
• --“more” at the beginning: “more eat, more tickle, more drink,..”
• --his own name at the end
• --repetition of words: “eat Nim eat, Nim eat Nim”
• ð  Nim’s ordering resembles the process found when a language acquires new word-order rules:
• mild stylistic preferences change into strong preferences which stabilize, become a habit and form a pattern which influences the formation of others.