Language evolution and the emergence of constructions in interaction

Abstract

This talk explores the evolution of language from the perspective of dialogic construction grammar, dialogic syntax, emergent grammar and interactional usage-based approaches (Goldberg 2006;Du Bois 2014;Hopper 2015, Brône & Zima 2014Pleyer 2017). These approaches all focus on "the emergence of grammatical patterning in on-line production, dialogically, and as a cooperative achievement" (Fried & Östman 2005(Fried & Östman : 1756. This talk argues that investigations of the evolutionary emergence of grammatical structure and constructions need to pay attention to this focus on the online, in-vivo interactional emergence of constructions and their subsequent conventionalization.As I argue, this process of interactive constructionalization also presents a way how the first protoconstructions could have emerged in protolinguistic hominin communities.In interaction, cognitive processes such as priming, conceptual pacts, intersubjective alignment, local schematization and routinization, microentrenchment and resonance activation can lead to the emergence of a temporary local network of constructions (Brône & Zima 2014). In the case of frequently recurring routines and practices, ad hoc constructions that are frequently microentrenched also acquire increasing degrees of entrenchment and conventionalization. Over time, this leads to these constructions emerging more easily and more frequently in interactions. This in turn subsequently leads to them becoming fully entrenched and acquire that status of grammaticalized and conventionalized constructions, or protoconstructions, proper. This is in line with the usage-based approach, which sees linguistic constructions as abstractions from frequently reoccurring instances of language -or in this case protolanguage -in interaction (Pleyer 2017). 382This paper is distributed under a Creative Commons CC-BY-ND license.

Cognitive Linguistics and Language Evolution

“…In fact, Wacewicz and Żywiczyński (2015) have gone so far as to argue that Hockett's design feature approach is a 'non-starter' and not a helpful framework for comparing human language and animal communication and investigating the evolution of language. The problem in their view is that Hockett's design features approach does not treat language as 'a suite of sensorimotor, cognitive and social abilities that enable the use but also acquisition of language by biological creatures' (Wacewicz & Żywiczyński 2015; see also Pleyer & Zhang 2022). This critique is especially relevant from a cognitive-linguistic point of view.…”

“…They are also potentially useful for comparison with animal communication systems if it is acknowledged that we should treat them not as boxes to be ticked or not. Instead, they should be seen as properties that we need to analyse in their ecological, cognitive, behavioural, social, and structural dimensions with an additional view towards their relations among each other (Wacewicz & Żywiczyński 2015;Pleyer & Zhang 2022). But as we have seen, other properties also need to be added.…”

“…This understanding of collective conventions is evident in children's complex sociocognitive behaviours, such as emerging concerns for social evaluation, impression management, and the enforcement of social norms (Engelmann et al 2012;Tomasello 2014). It also scaffolds children's understanding of other linguistic behaviours based on the creation of interactional conventions, such as conceptual pacts (Matthews et al 2010), pretend play (Pleyer 2020), and politeness and impoliteness norms (Pleyer & Pleyer 2016.…”