Is there a connection between these two asymmetries between nouns and verbs? Suppose at some point in the
evolutionofUG, wordsexpressingsituationstook ona specialfunction ingoverning phrase structure and wordorder.
These are, after all, the relational words par excellence, the ones that have the most articulated semantic argument
structure.This special functionmight consist in (or developinto)their becoming grammatically essential to expressing
an assertion. That would leave everything else as the default class. This is not too far off the noun–verb distinction:
verbs are situation words and are essential to expressing an assertion. Nouns are everything else. In fact, when
situationwords are notused withtheirspecialgrammatical function, theycan easilyfallintothedefault class, so nouns
can express situations too. Inother words, we get bothasymmetries from thesupposition thatsyntacticcategoriesfirst
emerged as a result of distinguishing verbs from everything else.
We might think of these special features of verbs versus nouns as a“basic body plan”for language. Japanese and
Korean might be thought of, then, as languages whose vocabulary is not optimally suited to this plan: they could be
more concise by just dispensing with the light verb most of the time. But they are stuck with it. Just as whales cannot
go back to using gills and are therefore hampered by having to go to the surface to breathe, these languages cannot
abandon the need for a verb in the sentence.
As we will see in a moment, once the noun–verb distinction is present, many other design features can collect around
it.
8.11 Morphology and grammatical functions
To move from this point to modern language, two independent sets of machinery must be added: morphology and
further aspects of syntax. Bickerton (along with many modern generative linguists) treats these as a completely
integrated whole thatforms thecore ofthe“grammar box.”On theother hand, as seenin section 6.2, attempts within
generative theory to integrate morphology and phrasal syntax seamlessly have (to my taste) resulted in a certain
artificiality.
Howmight thebraintreat morphology and phrasal syntax? A good analogy elsewhere in thebrain is depthperception,
wherewefind a varietyofdisparate mechanisms, rangingfrom very sensory (lensaccommodation) through perceptual
(stereopsis and occlusion)throughvery cognitive(knowingwhat sizes things shouldbe). Theseallconverge ona single
aspect of perceptual representation—the distance of visible surfaces fro mthe viewer. So meti mes they are redundant;
at some distances one or another predominates; and in illusions they may conflict.