Functional categories: an evolutionary perspective

In this chapter I will focus on the status and origin of functional categories in the languages of the world, and explore various ideas, with reference to proposals by researchers such Bickerton and Jackendoff, concerning three possibilities: (a) that in the course of language evolution, language developed from a functional category-free to a functional category-rich state; (b) that language started out as a system consisting mostly of syntactic patterns and functional categories (albeit of a different nature), and only then acquired a content lexicon. Ultimately, I tentatively propose that neither scenario is the most likely one, but that we need to consider the possibility of co-evolution of the syntactic and the lexical subsystems or modules in language, with functional categories at the interface between the two. 6.1 Functional categories Functional categories can take various shapes. Consider for instance, the Andean language Cuzco Quechua. In this Quechua variety, the original language of the Inka Empire, sentences generally have the form given in (1): (1) Tusu-yu-spa taki-ya-spa-n asa-ru-n-ku kargo-yoq-kuna-qa. dance-AUG-SS sing-AUG-SS-AF pass-EXH-3-PL charge-POS-PL-TO 'The charge holders [patrons of the feast] pass dancing and singing.' (Cusihuaman, 1976: 223) In this example we find two kinds of elements: lexical roots (two of which, kargo and pasa-, are loans from Spanish) and affixes (in bold in (1)). These two classes of elements differ on a number of dimensions: 180 Functional categories: an evolutionary perspective Phonology and morphology (a) Roots often consist of two syllables, while affixes are generally monosyllabic; (b) In roots we sometimes find aspirated and glottalized consonants; these are absent in affixes. Semantics and pragmatics (c) The meaning of the affixes is very often much more abstract than that of the roots; (d) Some of the affixes play a role in organizing the information structure of the clause, such as affirmative marker –n and the topic –qa.