Syntax Eases Communication (Well duh)

Yesterday I posted [here] a description of Maggie Tallerman's retort [abstract here] to the thought-firsters' idea that language evolved as a means of improved thought by allowing concepts to combine; we only later developed a way to externalize the thought as speech or signing. In that post I presented Tallerman's argument that words and concepts are not interchangeable and that words alone have properties that allow meaningful combinations. They get those properties via common usage. Today I want to look at her treatment of syntax. Basically, she makes the same point: the rules of syntax are formed via general usage, or to use the jargon: syntax comes through externalization. A thought-firster syntactical argument goes like this: In English the usual way of making a statement is to organize the sentence (S)ubject + (V)erb + (O)bject, e.g. She loves Joe. If we used the same form for asking a question, we would say She loves who? However, in English the question is usually asked Who does she love? Note that who has now become the subject of the verb does and the object is now the clause she love. But wait, there is something wrong with the clause. It lacks an object. It should be: she loves who? So the full S-V-O form should be [Who] [does] [[she] [loves] [who]]. Getting rid of the second who, say the thought firsters, eases the computational burden, but makes communication less efficient. Tallerman quotes two prominent thought-firsters as saying, when "there is ...
Source: Babel's Dawn - Category: Medical Scientists Authors: Source Type: blogs