The origin of noun phrases: Reference, truth and communication

This paper argues for an alternative answer to Carstairs-McCarthyʹs (1999) question “Why do all languages distinguish between NPs and sentences?” While agreeing on basic philosophical points with Carstairs-McCarthy, such as the lack of a distinction between truth and reference independent of grammar, I argue that the S/NP distinction is rooted in the basic communicative distinction between Topic and Comment. In the very earliest mental processes, long antedating language, binary structure can be found, with components that one can associate with the functions of identifying or locating an object and representing some information about it. When private thought went public, the earliest messages in any code with rudimentary syntax were of similar bipartite structure, with one part conveying information presumed to be already known to the hearer, and identifying the object that the message is about. The other part of the bipartite message conveyed information presumed to be new to the hearer. This bipartite structure, with its concomitant distinction between types of expression that could fulfil the respective roles, was so central to the main function of public language, namely communication, that it was never eroded away, and is the basis of the bipartite structure found universally in languages today.