Interjectional theory is a theory of language formulated by the pre-Socratic philosopher

Democritus Democritus (; el, Δημόκριτος, ''Dēmókritos'', meaning "chosen of the people"; – ) was an Ancient Greek pre-Socratic philosopher from Abdera, primarily remembered today for his formulation of an atomic theory of the universe. No ...

, ca. 460 BC to ca. 370 BC, who argued that human speech derives from a variety of sounds and outcries of an emotional nature. These ideas were later held by Epicurus and

Lucretius Titus Lucretius Carus ( , ; – ) was a Roman poet and philosopher. His only known work is the philosophical poem ''De rerum natura'', a didactic work about the tenets and philosophy of Epicureanism, and which usually is translated into En ...

who cited Democritus as their authority. The theory continued to influence the study of the origin of language into the 18th century when it was again put forward by Vico and

Rousseau Jean-Jacques Rousseau (, ; 28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Age of Enlightenment throughout Europe, as well as aspects of the French Revolu ...

. Criticisms of this theory include, that it only explains the origins of

interjections An interjection is a word or expression that occurs as an utterance on its own and expresses a spontaneous feeling or reaction. It is a diverse category, encompassing many different parts of speech, such as exclamations ''(ouch!'', ''wow!''), curse ...

, that emotional expressions often include sounds not used in language, and that it does not explain the origin of

nouns A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.Example nouns for: * Living creatures (including people, alive, ...

References

Evolution of language {{historical-linguistics-stub

See also

References