ABSTRACT
In the preceding chapters, we have focused mainly on the designative or naming aspects of early representation. We have there attempted to show how “names”—both motor-gestural and vocal—become increasingly differentiated or distanced from the pragmatically organized events which they come to denote and to connote. In this and the following two chapters, we shall deal in an analogous fashion with verbal expressions subserving the communication of messages concerning states of affairs. We shall again seek to show how—in the course of ontogenesis—expressions that carry messages become increasingly differentiated and articulated, so that distinct aspects of an expression come specifically to represent distinct aspects of a complex state of affairs, such as the intent of the speaker, the different components of the situation, and so on.
