167 / 298
Vico’s Ring
167
with respect to pronouns, particles, nouns, verbs, as well as structural aspects
such as word order and syntax (§§ 450-454). His terminology is Latin-based,
which is first of all, only one among a number of Indo-European languages,
and secondly, the Indo-European language family, in turn, is only one of a
multiplicity of distinct language families (see M. C. Baker,
The Atoms of Lan-
guage: The Mind’s Hidden Rules of Grammar
, New York, Basic Books, 2001, pp.
172, 250-251). Since Vico’s reflections are not primarily linguistical, as prac-
ticed in the discipline of linguistics, they are not necessarily invalidated by the
replacement of Latin-based concepts/terminology by more inclusive, and pu-
tatively more universal, language-structure parameters in modern linguistics
(see
ibid.
, p. 183, Figure 6.4, including
polysynthesis, head directionality, topic promi-
nence, verb attraction, subject placement
)
.
The apparent “dissonance” noted above
thus could be, at least partially, mitigated at the level of Trabant’s “sematolog-
ical” framework; we are nevertheless making use of the apparent heterogenei-
ty, all the more to emphasize a particular moment in Vico’s “poetic logic” that
does not emerge saliently under Trabant’s overarching perspective.
302
Most of these statements are quotations from Axioms XLVIII-LX in
the “Elements” in Book I; but, to these, Axiom XXXVII (§ 186) needs to be
added: «[…] it is a characteristic of children to take inanimate things in their
hands and talk to them in play as if they were living persons», as well as Axi-
om L (§ 211): «In children memory is most vigorous, and imagination is there-
fore excessively vivid […]».
303
Aspects of speech production on the part of children and speech-
impaired persons are discussed together in §§ 461- 462.
304
Similarly Axiom LVII (§ 225): «Mutes make themselves understood by
gestures or objects that have natural relations with the idea they wish to signi-
fy». See also §§ 431, 434.
305
G. Vico,
La Scienza nuova. Le tre edizioni
, cit., p. 869. This is the first ex-
plicit occurrence of the metaphor in
Scienza nuova.
See also Axioms XLIX (§
209) and LII (§ 216), and § 498: «Thus the first peoples, who where the chil-
dren of the human race, founded first the world of the arts […]».
306
Vico is not unique in his interest in initial language acquisition; it was
already studied by Augustine, for example (see G. Basile,
Acquisire parole, ac-
quisire saperi. Riflessioni su alcune pagine di Agostino
,
in
Il linguaggio. Teorie e storia delle
teorie
,
cit., pp. 55-70, pp. 61-66). However, in Vico, the discipline is not viewed
sui generis
but rather as a window into an otherwise inaccessible historical situa-
tion. Thus, an assumption of direct influence of Augustine on Vico in this ar-
ea would need to be substantially qualified. If it is the case that the systematic
study of the linguistic development of children started only at the end of the
19
th
century, it may be not entirely amiss to surmise that Vico may have based