IS AND A FOSSIL?: COORDINATION AND THE ORIGIN OF COMPOSITIONALITY

摘要

Providing an account of the origin of compositionality is one of the central challenges in studies of the evolution of language. We review a possible way to approach this challenge that focuses on coordination, the apparently universal capacity of language users to link sequences of clauses or sequences of similar constituents, as in Jo caught the ball and Fido barked or Fido chased the stick and the ball. We consider the possibility that coordination in modern language is a linguistic 'fossil'. Applying criteria emerging from various recent proposals (Bickerton 1990, 2010; Jackendoff 2002; Fitch 2010), we conclude that there is indeed evidence for this view of modern coordination. If our account is on the right track, modern language is a hybrid system whose components (Merge and coordination) are logically more distinct than their relatively smooth integration in performance would suggest.