David Rose Misunderstanding The Ontogenetic Move From Protolanguage To Language

David Rose wrote to Sysfling on 24 August 2023 at 23:10:

The syntagms of infant protolanguage can’t handle multiple functions. The ontogenetic breakthrough comes with coupling of interpersonal with ideational functions. That’s what the syntagms of language have evolved to enable. The infant recapitulates that phylogenesis through interaction with caregivers.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This misrepresents protolanguage. To be clear, infant protolanguage does not have syntagms, since syntagms are sequences of classes of lexicogrammatical form, and protolanguage has no lexicogrammar, and so no lexicogrammatical form (e.g. words), an so no classes of lexicogrammatical form to sequence in syntagms.

[2] This is misleading because it is untrue. The ontogenetic move from protolanguage to language does not include the coupling of interpersonal and ideational functions in syntagms provided by protolanguage. This is not only because protolanguage does not provide syntagms, but also because all the metafunctions emerge together. Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 532-3):

These three "metafunctions" are interdependent; no one could be developed except in the context of the other two. When we talk of the clause as a mapping of these three dimensions of meaning into a single complex grammatical structure, we seem to imply that each somehow "exists" independently; but they do not.

[3] On the one hand, this misunderstands evolution. Properties don't evolve in order to function advantageously in some context (Cause: purpose); they are selected because they function advantageously in some context (Cause: reason).

On the other hand, Rose is taking the opposite perspective on semogenesis from the SFL perspective, viewing it 'from below' in terms of form (syntagm) instead of 'from above' in terms of system and function.

[4] Importantly, ontogenesis does not recapitulate phylogenesis; see Recapitulation Theory. For example, a child learning Modern English does not recapitulate the moves from Old English to Middle English to Modern English. Instead, an ontogenetic trajectory that emerged at an earlier time in phylogenesis is maintained at later times in phylogenesis.