[Evolution of the communicative function]

This presentation of recent developments in child language research attempts to show that communicative competence is not built solely upon purely linguistic foundations. The development of communicative competence cannot be considered to begin with the first words. There is a growing body of evidence showing that functional communication appears long before the child's first uses of meaning-bearing sound sequences based on the adult language. Adult-child interaction, both during prelinguistic and early linguistic stages, provides an essential framework upon which verbal communication is based. The acquisition of what can be considered as pragmatic competence, necessary for all communication, begins from the birth.