I wish to dedicate this book to my grandson Alexander, who, around the age of 15 months, started using the syllable sequence [ɁaɁa] with down-stepping pitch, accompanied by index-finger pointing, to direct his mummy's attention to something he spotted in his action field: an example of a pointing call on an elementary articulation carrier without words, which shows up the fundamental role of communicative functions besides phonemes, words and sentences in language acquisition and use.