Theoretical stages in the prehistory of grammar

Leonard Rolfe

The first stage - necessarily without any prior pattern to build on - concerns getting is motivated by the seeking of some obligement: termed here 'solicitation'. Granting these obligements constitutes 'compliance'. Finally, a 'close-out' indicates the exchange is finished. This sequence constitutes a 'frame of dialogue' that represents the source of later grammatical functions, which become necessary to handle communicative functions as they become more elaborated - vocative from address; imperative and interrogative moods of the verb from solicitation; affirmative (and negative) from compliance (and refusal); and various markers for turn-taking. This frame also contributes to the provision of first and second persons of the verb when they are later grammaticalized

A minor complexification of these abilities yields the next stage, ostension þ pointing at a visible item with one's index finger. Ostension has three important facets: it is for another (and is hence situated in the earlier dialogic frame); it implies the addressee understands what is being pointed at; and it is oriented on the speaker - that is, it is 'deictic'. Ostension primarily concerns visible items, and distinguishes between those within and beyond reach, but can be extended to indicate non-visible phenomena. In this instance, however, ostension can no longer be contextually supported, but needs a new form, 'identification', which is secured by 'naming'. This builds on ostention, but extends it to constitute a new stage.

Identification can be secured by gestural imitation of shape or activity. Vocal units may have taken the first step towards being words by reformulating some of this gestural inventory, or by iconic representation. The notion of referential symbolism via words may not have been fully perceived at their creation, and they may well have arisen and been worked into the communicative system in an ad hoc manner. One method of securing referential symbolism is 'thematization' and this is proposed as the next stage.
'Thematic roots' are an organisational principle exploited in some language systems whereby a set of phonological alternances around a vowel allow the expression of particular aspects of the notion contained in the root. Verbs and nouns are not distinguished, but are implicit in the particular semantic features expressed by members of a theme. Thematic clusters constitute a semantic route towards grammar, in that their semantic features are sorted out in modern languages into the basic noun/verb distinction and grammaticalized into syntax.

Topic-comment structures are proposed as the first stage in the transition toward syntax. Initial topic-comment structures are asyntactic, since their relations are purely pragmatically based. These motivate the possibility of expressing third-person action, and the realization of this enables a speaker to depict scenes, which itself leads to a forefronting of implicit case relations, and moves topic/comment structures toward the realm of 'narrative' which requires considerable grammatical support for its effective handling. Narrativity begins to shift the relating of events from the intersubjective realm of the dialogic participants towards the objectification of events, yielding an 'epistemic' patterning of discourse, and motivating syntactic devices that handle the hitherto implicit features of narrative. This last, epistemic, stage may be relatively recent, and characteristic of a level of social organisation that produces the state [Eds].

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