From metonymy to syntax in the communication of events - Département Informatique et Réseaux
Chapitre D'ouvrage Année : 2010

From metonymy to syntax in the communication of events

Résumé

Language, from its early hominin origin to now, was not primarily being used for practical purposes. We suggest that an essential function of protolanguage was to signal 'noteworthy' events, as humans still systematically do. 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.
Fichier non déposé

Dates et versions

hal-00616427 , version 1 (22-08-2011)

Identifiants

  • HAL Id : hal-00616427 , version 1

Citer

Jean-Louis Dessalles. From metonymy to syntax in the communication of events. The emergence of protolanguage - Holophrasis vs compositionality, John Benjamins Publishing Comp., pp.51-65, 2010. ⟨hal-00616427⟩
387 Consultations
0 Téléchargements

Partager

More