I'm currently working hard (read: procrastinating) trying to write my undergraduate dissertation. I'm writing on the fascinating subject of language origins and evolution. I'm not sure why i love it because science has never really been my thing, and it is undeniably science, but i do. My focus is on Derek Bickerton's theory of protolanguage. He hypothesises a synthetic, compositional model of protolanguage which lacks syntax and involves single units of meaning being strung together to make small phrases. Some other theories of protolanguage involve holistic utterances, or small units that contain the whole meaning of a sentence. I personally find it impossible to consider that language evolved without some intermediate 'protolinguistic' stage. Yet that is exactly what Chomsky would have us believe... But don't even get me started on that. I'm currently at the stage in my dissertation of looking at all of the evidence available to us for language evolution. There is (as one might expect from something that doesn't fossilise) very little. Just a lot of just-so stories with evidence that does back them up, but also doesn't quite definitively prove anything. So overall, it's very very interesting! I hope to do more work on the subject in future, because it is such a young field, and there is so much more to be found out or discovered.
One thing i'm wondering though, has anyone bothered trying to teach closed class, grammatical items to a bonobo yet? Because until then we can't rule out that they could learn full language. If nobody else fancies it, maybe i'll do a PhD and give it a shot!
| Kanzi the bonobo with Dr Sue Savage-Rumbaugh |
As a side note, if anyone is interested, Northumbria University are hosting the 10th Symposium on the History of English Syntax on the 21st and 22nd April. I know one of the organisers is Dr William van der Wurff of Newcastle University, so it promises to be a fascinating and enlightening event!
