The copula is indispensable because something is asserted in a sentence. The parenthesis is added because such assertion does not always require the presence of a verb phrase, e.g., Balloon.
Subclass (1a), the naming sentence, might be formulated by the semiotic rule
(1a) Sentence → IEc (is) Sc
where I is an index, either an item of behavior, a pointing at or looking at, or some such functor as that in That is a balloon; E is an experience, subscript c added to indicate that it is not such-and-such an experience which is pointed at or looked at as a singular but rather as one of a class of such experiences. Similarly, Sc is not such-and-such a sound but rather an utterance understood as a class of such sounds (phonology). To use Chafe’s terminology, we are dealing not with substances but with forms (Chafe).
Note that it is preferable to use Ec to designate a semological class of experience rather than, say, Oc for a class of objects, e.g., ballons. For in fact a child not only names things (table, doggie, ball) but actions (play, see, drop) and qualities (blue, broke, bad) (Brown and Bellugi). What such words have in common is not a syntactical property but a semantic property. Thus they are not all nouns; some are verbs and adverbs. But they are all semantically contentive.
The second subclass is the standard “syntactical” declarative sentence form:
(lb) Sentence → NP-VP
Sentences of this form, I shall suggest, appear first in children’s speech as those two-word combinations in which contentive words are selected from an inventory of semophones stored up by naming sentences and are paired to form primitive versions of adult NP-VP sentences. Thus: Bobby wet, Doggie fall, Mommy lunch (Mommy had her lunch), etc.
3.5. Four immediate advantages accrue to a linguistic model which proposes a semological-phonological linkage as its genetically prime component:
(1) It is a transsyntactical theory; that is, it is founded on a general semiotic — the science of the relations between people and signs and things — which specifies syntax as but one dimension of sentential theory. Accordingly, it provides theoretical grounds for distinguishing between the two types of declarative sentences, the naming sentence and the NP-VP sentence.
(2) It accords with the data of language acquisition and provides a model for understanding the ontogenesis of speech in children, in particular the stages of word and “phrase” acquisition, a sequence which is presently accounted for by purely descriptive “generative rules of phrase formation.”
(3) It allows the possibility, as we shall see, of looking for a neurophysiological correlate of such a model, a possibility which is disallowed in principle by a generative theory which postulates syntax as a central underived component.
(4) It permits the assimilation of linguistic theory to a more general theory of all symbolic transactions, a theory which must in turn accommodate such nonsyntactical “sentences” as metaphor, a painting, a sculpture, a piece of music. From this larger perspective it will be seen that the division of language into two kinds of sentences is not as arbitrary and unsatisfactory as it might at first appear. Rather is it the case that the standard syntactical sentence of language, the coupling of subject and predicate, is a special case of the more fundamental human capacity to couple any two things at all and through the mirror of the one see the other. Thus, the child’s sudden inkling that the thing ball “is” the sound ball is the progenitor not only of all future sentences about balls but also of his grasp of metaphor, art, and music.
4. The two kinds of sentences formed by (1a) and (1b) can be regarded not only as representing the formal subclasses of constative sentences — anyone at any time can name things with one-word sentences or assert propositions about things and events and relations — but also as delineating major stages in the ontogenesis of language. In the initial naming stage of language acquisition, the first sentences children utter are the linking of semological elements (forms of experience) with phonological elements (forms of sound). As a consequence of this extraordinary naming activity, a repertoire of semological-phonological complexes or “contentive” words is formed. For the sake of convenience I propose to call these semological-phonological complexes “semophones.” Once such a lexicon of semophones is available, it becomes possible by combining any two semophones to form a large number of primitive NP-VP sentences.
4.1. One test of a theory of language is its utility in accounting for the acquisition of language, in particular the ontogenesis of speech as it is observed in intensive studies of individual children.
Judged by the standard of adult syntax, the early manifestations of speech in children appear vagarious and fragmentary. In studies of individual children, such speech forms have been described variously as “single-word utterances,” “phrases,” “holophrases,” “sentence fragments,” “telegraphic sentences,” and so on.
Such studies, however, generally agree in specifying certain stages of language development.
Some time around the end of the first year of life, most children go through a naming stage. As Brown and Bellugi put it, at this period “most children are saying many words and some children go about the house all day long naming things (table, doggie, ball, etc.) and actions (play, see, drop, etc.) and an occasional quality (blue, broke, bad, etc.).
It is interesting to note that the best-known studies of the acquisition of speech in children (Braine, Brown, Ervin, McNeill), while taking note of the naming stage and of “one-word utterances,” skip over it and address themselves to “phrases” of two or more words. The assumption seems to be made both that there is assuredly such a thing as a naming stage and also that there is not much to be said about it. This may be true, but it nevertheless seems curious, considering the fact that no other species on earth ever names anything at all, much less goes about naming everything under the sun or asking its name, that investigators of the genesis of language in children should not have been more intrigued by this apparently unique activity. On the other hand, what is one to say about it? A child names something or hears it named, understands or misunderstands what is named, and that is that. One can only conclude either (1) that the phenomenon of naming is the most transparent of events and therefore there is little to be said about it, or (2) that it is the most mysterious of phenomena and therefore one can’t say much about it. As Fodor said, nobody knows what a name is.
I wish to suggest that one reason for the indifference of these psycholinguistic studies to the naming stage of language acquisition is a necessary consequence of a commitment to structuralism as linguistic theory. That is to say, if one regards grammatical patterns and distributional relations as the primary goal of linguistics, one can’t have much to say when confronted with a single word. For as soon as theory abstracts from behavior and the relation of words to things, and addresses itself only to the relation of words to words, the theorist can only watch the naming child with bemused interest and mark time until he begins to put two or more words together.
The second stage of language acquisition is characterized by two-word utterances, usually described as “pivot-open” constructions. The pivot class has fewer members than the open class. Thus, a child will say my sock, my boat, my fan, or big plane, big shoe, big sock, etc. (Braine); that knee, that coffee, that Adam, or two coat, two stool, two Tinkertoy, etc. (Brown and Bellugi); this arm, this baby, this yellow, or the other, the pretty, the dolly’s, or here baby, here yellow, etc. (Ervin). The following rule therefore holds for both single-word utterances and pivot-open combinations (McNeill):