1. Two steps in the Evolution of Language: Merge and Grammaticalization Elly van Gelderen Arizona State University ellyvangelderen@asu.edu ICHL 18, Montreal, 8 August 2007

2. 2 Language Evolution: my aims Some background on what we know from genetics, areal linguistics, etc. Discuss the two steps in the development of the Computational System (CS) Argue that change is triggered by cognitive processes Explain the Macro-Cycle: SyntheticAnalytic

3. 3 As well as some Micro-Cycles Negative (neg): neg indefinite/adverb > neg particle > (neg particle) Definiteness demonstrative > article > class marker Agreement emphatic > pronoun > agreement Auxiliary V/A/P > M > T > C Clausal pronoun > complementizer PP/Adv > Topic > C

4. 4 What we know –50,000-150,000art/tools –how people/languages spread: archeology and language-gene connection What can areal linguistics and reconstruction tell us? –Nichols and WALS –Greenberg What can (historical) syntax tell us?

5. 5 First what we know from other sources: migrations

6. 6 MtDNA and Migrations

7. 7 Areal Linguistics and Early Language? Nichols, dependent marking: none in Africa, Australia, etc

8. 8 World Atlas of Language Structures

9. 9 Dryer’s map on Case

10. 10 VO and OV

11. 11 Reconstruction and Early Language What works: general picture of migrations but not the actual shape of the language –Greenberg/Ruhlen –Campbell (1988):”detrimental effect on the field”, “misleads”. Therefore we need to look at syntax for insight into evolutionary stages

12. 12 Adam Smith, 1767

13. 13 Some hypotheses on Proto-Language Like Smith, Newmeyer suggests that proto-languages may have been inflectional (2000: 385, n 4) Bickerton 1990 fossils of proto-lg (aphasia/pidgin): no morphology; no PS Hauser, Chomsky, & Fitch 2002 FLB (CI-SM-Mechanisms for Recursion) – FLN (Recursion) Chomsky 2005 Merge "`Great Leap Forward' in the evolution of humans"

14. 14 What was missing in Proto-language? Merge: (1)Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you. (=Nim)

15. 15 And grammaticalization:

16. 16 Three separate systems? symbolic thematic pragmatic(?) + sounds/vocabulary + merge and grammaticalization =SEM = PHON = NS

17. 17 From Proto-LgTo Lg: Merge Grammaticalization Principles of Merge Economy lead to grammaticalization: Merge brought about the first step of linguistic evolution but Cognitive Principles (Chomsky’s `third factor’) were responsible for further language evolution.

18. 18 Grammaticalization = Specifier to Head Subject Cycle aTPbTP DPT’DPT’ pronTVPpron-TVP Urdu/Hindi, JapaneseColl French cTP [DP] T’ proagr-TVP

19. 19 Specifier to Head Specifier (je-il) to Head: (1)Moi, j’ai pas vu ça. ’I, I haven’t seen that’. (2)Et toi, tu aimes le rap? (3) on voit que lui il n'apprécie pas tellement la politique one sees that him he not-appreciates not so the politics ‘and it can be seen that he doesn’t appreciate politics that way’. (LTSN corpus, p. 15-466)

20. 20 Standard to Colloquial French (a) Modification, (b) coordination, (c) position, (d) doubling, (e) loss of V- movement, (f) Code switching (1)et c'est moi qui.. (2)*Je et tu... (3)*je lis et ecris

21. 21 Doubling, loss of V-movement and code switching (1)une omelette elle est comme ça Swiss Spoken an omelette she is like this (2)c'est que chacun il a sa manière de... Swiss Spoken it is that everyone he has his way of (Fonseca-Greber 2000: 335; 338). (3) Alors pourquoi moi aussi je n'aurais pas le droit d'enfumer les autres quelques minutes dans un bar? Then why me also I not-have not the right to fill-with-smoke the others some minutes in a bar (4)tuvasoùColloquial French 2Sgowhere (5)nta tu vas travaillerArabic-French you you go work (from Bentahila and Davies 1983: 313).

22. 22 The Subject Cycle (1) demonstrative > third person pron > clitic > agrmnt (2) oblique > emphatic > first/second pron > clitic > agrmnt Basque verbal prefixes n-, g-, z- = pronouns ni ‘I’, gu ‘we’, and zu ‘you’. Pama-Nyungan, inflectional markers are derived from independent pronouns. Iroquoian and Uto-Aztecan agreement markers derive from Proto-Iroquoian pronouns Cree verbal markers ni-, ki-, o-/ø = pronouns niya, kiya, wiya.

23. 23 English: in transition (a) Modification, (b) coordination, (c) position, (d) doubling, (e) loss of V-movement, (f) Code switching Coordination (and Case) (1)Kitty and me were to spend the day. (2)%while he and she went across the hall. Position (3)She’s very good, though I perhaps I shouldn’t say so. (4)You maybe you've done it but have forgotten. (5)Me, I was flying economy, but the plane, … was guzzling gas

24. 24 Doubling and cliticization (1)Me, I've tucking had it with the small place. (2)%Him, he.... (3)%Her, she shouldn’t do that (not attested in the BNC) (4)*As for a dog, it should be happy. CSE-FAC: uncliticizedcliticizedtotal I2037685 (=25%)2722 you1176162 (=12.1%)1338 he12819 (=12.9%)147

25. 25 Loss of V-movement and Code switching (5)What I'm go'n do? `What am I going to do' (6)How she's doing? `How is she doing‘ (7)*He ging weg ` he went away’ Dutch-English CS (8)The neighbor ging weg

26. 26 Other instances of the Head Preference Principle (HPP): Be a head, rather than a phrase/specifier Acquisition: (1)those little things that you play with (Adam 4:10) Lg Change: (2)Relative pronoun that to complementizer Demonstrative to article Negative adverb to negation marker Adverb to aspect marker Adverb to complementizer (e.g. till)

27. 27 DP Cycle a.DPb.DP demD'  D'(=HPP) DNPDNP artN  c.DP D' DNP ^ N renewal

28. 28 The Negative Cycle XP SpecX' na wihtXYP not> n’t… through LM

29. 29 Second kind of Grammaticalization: Lexical > Functional/Late Merge

30. 30 The preposition like as C: Acquisition (1)like a cookie (Abe, 3.7) (2)no the monster crashed the planes down like this like that (Abe, 3.7) (3)Daddy # do you teach like you do [//] like how they do in your school? (Abe, 4.10) Language change (4)People have never been down and out like they are today (5)So the other girl goes like: `Getting an autograph is like, be brave and ask for it'. So I got it. I just went up to him and he like. `O.K... (6)3on man is lyke out of his mynd (Dunbar Poems, xix, 19). Other cases of Late Merge Negative objects to negative markers modals: v > ASP > T VP > CP adverbials To: P > ASP > M > C

31. 31 After from P > C (1)Fand þa ðær inn æþelinga gedriht swefan [æfter symble found then there in; noble company sleeping after feast (Beowulf 118-9) (2)[æfter þissum gefeohte] cuom micel sumorlida. `after this fight, there came a large summer-force' (Chronicle A, anno 871) (3)[Æfter þysan] com Thomas to Cantwarebyri `After this, Thomas came to Canterbury'. (Chronicle A, anno 1070)

32. 32 (1)After that the king hadde brent the volum (Wyclyf 1382, taken over in Coverdale 1535 and KJV 1611, from the OED). (2) Aftir he hadde take þe hooli Goost (c1360 Wyclif De Dot. Eccl. 22). (3) After thei han slayn them (1366 Mandeville174). Four stages: PPPP900 (Chronicle A) – present PP (that)950 (Lindisfarne) - 1600 (OED 1587) P that1220 (Lambeth) - 1600 (OED 1611) C1360 (Wycliff) - present

33. 33 A `too much work’ story: CP C’ C… PP afterDP

34. 34 From P > C (feature-wise) PPCP PDP>CTPafter [u-phi][3S](u-phi) [ACC][uACC] In English, no phi, but Germanic C-agreement.

35. 35 From V > AUX VPTP VDP>TVP wolde [uCASE] wouldVDP [ACC][phi][uphi] [uphi]

36. 36 Feature Economy: uF as perfection Economy of Features Minimize the interpretable features in the derivation a.Spec>Head>zero b.semantic > interpretable > uninterpretable (phi on N)(uphi on T) This explains the cycles and where non-lexical categories came from.

37. 37 Aspect Cycle a.ASPPb.ASPP ASP‘ASP' ASPVP  ASPVP upVAPup... up  c.ASPP ASP' ASPVP VAP up

38. 38 Perfective aspect Cycle: (1)adverb > affix > 0 One stage: (2)a.Elizabeth's accession allowed him to receive back his wife (BNC-GTB938) b.a husband who changed his mind to receive his wife back without ceremony (BNC-HTX2122). -Pattern (a) has become more frequent in the recent period (Davies 2005), even with definite nominals: In the 100-million British National Corpus, receive occurs nine times in constructions such as (2a) and four times in constructions such as (2b) (twice with a pronoun and twice with a DP) -The use of pronominal objects, typical for the first order, with these verbs has gone down too.

39. 39 Two other principles Null hypothesis of language acquisition A string is a word with lexical content (Faarlund 2007) Specifier Incorporation (SIP) When possible, be a specifier if you are a phrase/adjunct (van Gelderen 2007)

40. 40 Renewal at the end of the cycle Newmeyer 2006 notes that some grammaticalizations from noun/verb to affix can take as little as 1000 years, and wonders how there can be anything left to grammaticalize if this is the right scenario. Late Merge (Feature Economy), however, provides an answer for what the source of the replenishments are, namely lexical elements from lower in the tree. There are also borrowings and creative inventions through SIP.

41. 41 New specifiers: (1)a laide de Dieu notre Seigneur, Qui vous douit bonne vie et longue. `With the help of God, our Lord, who gives us a good and long life' (Bekynton, from Rydén, p. 131). (2)be the grace of God, who haue yow in kepyng `by the grace of God, who keeps you' (Paston Letters 410).

42. 42 Conclusions 1Evolution as Grammaticalization After the introduction of Merge, the emergence of syntax would have followed the path that current grammaticalization follows; one that children use. Cognitive Economy Principles, from which grammaticalization and language change follow.

43. 43 2Thematic > Discourse Chomsky (2002: 113) sees the semantic component as expressing thematic as well as discourse information. If thematic structure was already present in proto- language (Bickerton 1990), the evolutionary change of Merge made them linguistic. What was added through grammaticalization is the morphology, the second layer of semantic information.

44. 44 3“Language is a Perfect Solution to Interface Conditions” “the conflict between computational efficiency and ease of communication” is resolved “to satisfy the CI interface” (2006: 9). That would mean an analytic stage is preferred, but there is no evidence of that! Therefore:

45. 45 4Analytic ↔ Synthetic Cycle goes from (a) to (b) to (a) … a) Movement links two positions and is thereby economical (=synthetic) = uninterpretable/EPP b) Avoid syncretism; Iconicity is economical (=analytic) = semantic and interpretable features

46. 46 Some References Bickerton, Derek 1990. Language and Species. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Carstairs-McCarthy, A., 1999. Origins of complex language. OUP. Chomsky, Noam 2002. On Nature and Language. CUP. Chomsky, Noam 2005. Three factors in Language design. Linguistic Inquiry 36.1: 1-22. Chomsky, Noam 2006. Approaching UG from below. ms. Dryer, Matthew n.d. http://linguistics.buffalo.edu/people/faculty/dryer.http://linguistics.buffalo.edu/people/faculty/dryer Faarlund, Jan Terje 2007. to appear in EyÞórrson. Forster, Peter http://www.mcdonald.cam.ac.uk/genetics/mtDNAworld/one.html. http://www.mcdonald.cam.ac.uk/genetics/mtDNAworld/one.html Gelderen, Elly van 2004. Grammaticalization as Economy. Benjamins. Gelderen, Elly van 2007. The Linguistics Cycle. to appear in EyÞórrson. Haspelmath, Martin et al. 2005. The World Atlas of Language Structures Hauser, Marc, Noam Chomsky, & Tecumseh Fitch 2002. The Faculty of Language: what is it, who has it, and how did it evolve? Science: 298: 1569-79.

47. 47 Kuczaj, S. 1976. -Ing, -s, -ed: A study of the acquisition of certain verb inflections. University of Minnesota PhD. Newmeyer, Frederick 2000. On the Reconstruction of 'Proto-World' Word Order. In Chris Knight et al (eds) The Evolutionary Emergence of Language, 372-388. CUP. Newmeyer, Frederick 2006. What can Grammaticalization tell us about the Origins of Language?. Abstract, http://www.tech.plym.ac.uk/socce/evolang6/newmeyer.doc http://www.tech.plym.ac.uk/socce/evolang6/newmeyer.doc Nichols, Johanna 1992. Linguistic diversity in space and time. Univ of Chicago Press. Piattelli-Palmarini, Massimo & Juan Uriagereka 2005. The Evolution of the Narrow Faculty of Language. Lingue e Linguaggio, 1-52. Smith, Adam. 1767. The theory of moral sentiments. To which is added a dissertation on the origin of languages. London [3 rd ed]. Tauli, Valter 1958. The Structural Tendencies of Languages. Helsinki.