

Grammar


Tenses


Present

Present Simple

Present Continuous

Present Perfect

Present Perfect Continuous


Past

Past Simple

Past Continuous

Past Perfect

Past Perfect Continuous


Future

Future Simple

Future Continuous

Future Perfect

Future Perfect Continuous


Parts Of Speech


Nouns

Countable and uncountable nouns

Verbal nouns

Singular and Plural nouns

Proper nouns

Nouns gender

Nouns definition

Concrete nouns

Abstract nouns

Common nouns

Collective nouns

Definition Of Nouns

Animate and Inanimate nouns

Nouns


Verbs

Stative and dynamic verbs

Finite and nonfinite verbs

To be verbs

Transitive and intransitive verbs

Auxiliary verbs

Modal verbs

Regular and irregular verbs

Action verbs

Verbs


Adverbs

Relative adverbs

Interrogative adverbs

Adverbs of time

Adverbs of place

Adverbs of reason

Adverbs of quantity

Adverbs of manner

Adverbs of frequency

Adverbs of affirmation

Adverbs


Adjectives

Quantitative adjective

Proper adjective

Possessive adjective

Numeral adjective

Interrogative adjective

Distributive adjective

Descriptive adjective

Demonstrative adjective


Pronouns

Subject pronoun

Relative pronoun

Reflexive pronoun

Reciprocal pronoun

Possessive pronoun

Personal pronoun

Interrogative pronoun

Indefinite pronoun

Emphatic pronoun

Distributive pronoun

Demonstrative pronoun

Pronouns


Pre Position


Preposition by function

Time preposition

Reason preposition

Possession preposition

Place preposition

Phrases preposition

Origin preposition

Measure preposition

Direction preposition

Contrast preposition

Agent preposition


Preposition by construction

Simple preposition

Phrase preposition

Double preposition

Compound preposition

prepositions


Conjunctions

Subordinating conjunction

Correlative conjunction

Coordinating conjunction

Conjunctive adverbs

conjunctions


Interjections

Express calling interjection

Phrases

Sentences

Clauses

Part of Speech


Grammar Rules

Passive and Active

Preference

Requests and offers

wishes

Be used to

Some and any

Could have done

Describing people

Giving advices

Possession

Comparative and superlative

Giving Reason

Making Suggestions

Apologizing

Forming questions

Since and for

Directions

Obligation

Adverbials

invitation

Articles

Imaginary condition

Zero conditional

First conditional

Second conditional

Third conditional

Reported speech

Demonstratives

Determiners

Direct and Indirect speech


Linguistics

Phonetics

Phonology

Linguistics fields

Syntax

Morphology

Semantics

pragmatics

History

Writing

Grammar

Phonetics and Phonology

Semiotics


Reading Comprehension

Elementary

Intermediate

Advanced


Teaching Methods

Teaching Strategies

Assessment
From non-language to language
المؤلف:
Bernd Heine and Tania Kuteva
المصدر:
The Genesis of Grammar
الجزء والصفحة:
P311-C7
2026-03-27
30
From non-language to language
One question that we asked whether language genesis can be linked to the behavior of non-human animals, especially that of apes: How does the hypothesis on early language proposed above (“Early language Layers”) relate to what we know about cognitive abilities and communication systems to be found in non-human animals? An answer to this question is faced with a number of problems. Ignoring these problems, it would seem that at least a partial answer is possible. Research findings that we discussed in “Some cognitive abilities of animals Discussion” suggest, first, that language should not be viewed as contingent upon speech and, second, that the prerequisites to language are presumably not uniquely human. We saw that some non-human animal species have been found to display a respectable catalog of language-related abilities, such as the ones listed in “Language-like abilities in animals” ((2), repeated here for convenience):
(a) to understand salient characteristics of concepts;
(b) to distinguish form–meaning units (‘‘words’’);
(c) to acquire form–meaning units of more than 100 items, including items denoting objects, actions, and some numbers;
(d) to handle functional items for negation and questions;
(e) to have an elementary understanding of the notion of deixis;
(f) to use an elementary argument structure;
(g) to acquire some understanding of linear arrangement between form–meaning units;
(h) to conjoin propositions and/or form–meaning units;
(i) to acquire some basics of taxonomic hierarchy as it manifests itself in inclusion and part–whole relations.
Taken together, these abilities provide a sufficient basis for developing an elementary linguistic communication system (see “An elementary linguistic system?”), consisting at least of some word units that can be combined, where combining is compositional, a small lexicon, a basic sentence structure, some principle of linear arrangement of words, some mechanism of conjoining propositions, and a few essential functional categories for questions, negation, and deixis. What such a system would lack most of all are the following structural properties: an elaborated noun phrase and verb phrase structure, derivational and inflectional morphology including agreement, pronominalization, subordination and, more generally, any marked degree of grammaticalization—in other words, properties arising from layer IV onwards.
Keeping in mind that this is not an actual system but rather one that we construct on the basis of behavior found in non-human animals, how does such a system relate to our scenario of grammaticalization in Table 7.1 in “Grammatical evolution Layers”? There can be little doubt that it corresponds fully to layer II, in some respects—that is with regard to properties such as functional categories and the conjoining mechanism—even to more advanced layers. This suggests that the gap between human languages and the abilities exhibited by other animals is by no means unbridgeable, in that there is an overlap area between the two. And this would also suggest that the transition from non-language to language fell squarely within the period covered by our grammaticalization scenario of early language.1
This was a period prior to the rise of recursion as a morphosyntactic phenomenon, as we observed above. We noted that after explicit training some non-human primates developed a conceptual ability that we consider to be a prerequisite for an understanding of recursion, namely to comprehend taxonomic relations between more and less inclusive objects such as wholes and their parts. Such relations, we argue, are suggestive at least of implicit conceptual recursion. Accordingly, the transition from non-language to early language was presumably not nearly as dramatic as has been suggested by some authors.
To conclude, the question raised above can be answered in the affirmative: There is a possible link between language genesis and language-related capacities of non-human animals, and this link is not restricted to apes. How the transition from non-language to language exactly proceeded is a subject of further research; most likely it was not animal communication but rather cognitive abilities already in place in animals that provided the bridge to an increasingly open communication system (Rumbaugh et al. 1978: 137). But once the transition was concluded, the subsequent evolution must have continued along the lines sketched in “Early language Layers”, proceeding from layer to layer right into what we find in modern languages.
1 Fritz Newmeyer (p.c.) considers it possible that layers I and II happened in the period of H. erectus, and that our scenario is not incompatible with Bickerton’s (1990, 1995, 2005) ‘‘protolanguage’’ notion.
الاكثر قراءة في Linguistics fields
اخر الاخبار
اخبار العتبة العباسية المقدسة
الآخبار الصحية

قسم الشؤون الفكرية يصدر كتاباً يوثق تاريخ السدانة في العتبة العباسية المقدسة
"المهمة".. إصدار قصصي يوثّق القصص الفائزة في مسابقة فتوى الدفاع المقدسة للقصة القصيرة
(نوافذ).. إصدار أدبي يوثق القصص الفائزة في مسابقة الإمام العسكري (عليه السلام)