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

The evolution of language

• The emergence of rules -
• Brigitte Knocke

The emergence of rules

• A language needs ‘rules’. Communication would break down if there were no agreed ways of combining linguistic units.
• In theory there are nearly endless possibilities to combine words and sounds. However, any full language has narrowed down the range of possibilities to a few allowable combinations
• => the grammar.

How could grammar have arisen in the evolution of language?

• Simple rules have two requirements:
• different types of basic units must exist
• ways of combining the units must be agreed

• Different types of basic words
• Nouns are the basic words, which arose before other types of words were developed
• Nouns and verbs together constituted the first ‘grammar’ => humans could mentally distinguish things and people from actions and events for a long time before establishing them as nouns and verbs.
• Nouns and verbs are regarded as the universal categories of all languages.