Entrenchment, conventionalization and cumulative culture: A usage-based perspective on language evolution

Abstract

This paper discusses how concepts from usage-based linguistics can prove fruitful in investigating the evolution of language. In particular, we focus on recent developments in usage-based approaches to language and the question of how they can inform an account of how fully-fledged language emerged from protolinguistic communication. Specifically, we focus on the concepts of entrenchment and conventionalization as well as their interaction in processes of language change and grammaticalization, and we discuss whether and to what extent such concepts can also account for the emergence of structure in hominin interactions.