It's hard to generalize from a single instance, but you may have something there. It is striking that both means of expressing large numbers of ideas - vocabula

It's hard to generalize from a single instance, but you may have something there. It is striking that both means of expressing large numbers of ideas - vocabulary and syntax - only occur in us. I would guess that they were driven by the same evolutionary pressures and benefits. There was an article about a (potentially) intermediate "proto-syntax" language used by an animal. Even since your comment, I've been wracking my brains for what it was. I can't even recall what type of animal it was... ah, now that you prompt me to put it into words :), I can google "proto-syntax": http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091212144710.htm http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091212144710.ht... And just submitted (I seem to have come to it from reddit; it hadn't been submitted here yet): http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1036802 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1036802