Two stages in the evolution of language use
Résumé
The study of language use, usually called pragmatics, reveals that the competence of speakers is not monolithic. It can be split into two quite distinct behaviors. The first one deals with salient events; the second one deals with problematic situations. We claim that the second ability emerged long after the first one in hominid evolutionary history. A consistent scenario is that communication about salient events is what the protolanguage hypothesized by Bickerton (1990) was used for. The detection and collective processing of problematic situations can be understood as an additional ability which gave rise to modern language.