Creating Language

Download Creating Language PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 026203431X
Total Pages : 345 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (62 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Creating Language by : Morten H. Christiansen

Download or read book Creating Language written by Morten H. Christiansen and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2016-03-18 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A work that reveals the profound links between the evolution, acquisition, and processing of language, and proposes a new integrative framework for the language sciences. Language is a hallmark of the human species; the flexibility and unbounded expressivity of our linguistic abilities is unique in the biological world. In this book, Morten Christiansen and Nick Chater argue that to understand this astonishing phenomenon, we must consider how language is created: moment by moment, in the generation and understanding of individual utterances; year by year, as new language learners acquire language skills; and generation by generation, as languages change, split, and fuse through the processes of cultural evolution. Christiansen and Chater propose a revolutionary new framework for understanding the evolution, acquisition, and processing of language, offering an integrated theory of how language creation is intertwined across these multiple timescales. Christiansen and Chater argue that mainstream generative approaches to language do not provide compelling accounts of language evolution, acquisition, and processing. Their own account draws on important developments from across the language sciences, including statistical natural language processing, learnability theory, computational modeling, and psycholinguistic experiments with children and adults. Christiansen and Chater also consider some of the major implications of their theoretical approach for our understanding of how language works, offering alternative accounts of specific aspects of language, including the structure of the vocabulary, the importance of experience in language processing, and the nature of recursive linguistic structure.

Evolutionary Language Understanding

Download Evolutionary Language Understanding PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1474246435
Total Pages : 226 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (742 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Evolutionary Language Understanding by : Geoffrey Sampson

Download or read book Evolutionary Language Understanding written by Geoffrey Sampson and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2015-12-17 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book records a unique attempt over a ten-year period to use stochastic optimization in the natural language processing domain. Setting the work against the background of the logical rule-based approach, the author provides a context for understanding the differences in assumptions about the nature of language and cognition.

The Evolutionary Emergence of Language

Download The Evolutionary Emergence of Language PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780521786966
Total Pages : 444 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (869 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Evolutionary Emergence of Language by : Chris Knight

Download or read book The Evolutionary Emergence of Language written by Chris Knight and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2000-11-20 with total page 444 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Language has no counterpart in the animal world. Unique to Homo sapiens, it appears inseparable from human nature. But how, when and why did it emerge? The contributors to this volume - linguists, anthropologists, cognitive scientists, and others - adopt a modern Darwinian perspective which offers a bold synthesis of the human and natural sciences. As a feature of human social intelligence, language evolution is driven by biologically anomalous levels of social cooperation. Phonetic competence correspondingly reflects social pressures for vocal imitation, learning, and other forms of social transmission. Distinctively human social and cultural strategies gave rise to the complex syntactical structure of speech. This book, presenting language as a remarkable social adaptation, testifies to the growing influence of evolutionary thinking in contemporary linguistics. It will be welcomed by all those interested in human evolution, evolutionary psychology, linguistic anthropology, and general linguistics.

The First Word

Download The First Word PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 1101202394
Total Pages : 376 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (12 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The First Word by : Christine Kenneally

Download or read book The First Word written by Christine Kenneally and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2007-07-19 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An accessible exploration of a burgeoning new field: the incredible evolution of language The first popular book to recount the exciting, very recent developments in tracing the origins of language, The First Word is at the forefront of a controversial, compelling new field. Acclaimed science writer Christine Kenneally explains how a relatively small group of scientists that include Noam Chomsky and Steven Pinker assembled the astounding narrative of how the fundamental process of evolution produced a linguistic ape-in other words, us. Infused with the wonder of discovery, this vital and engrossing book offers us all a better understanding of the story of humankind.

Why Only Us

Download Why Only Us PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262533499
Total Pages : 229 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (625 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Why Only Us by : Robert C. Berwick

Download or read book Why Only Us written by Robert C. Berwick and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2017-05-12 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Berwick and Chomsky draw on recent developments in linguistic theory to offer an evolutionary account of language and humans' remarkable, species-specific ability to acquire it. “A loosely connected collection of four essays that will fascinate anyone interested in the extraordinary phenomenon of language.” —New York Review of Books We are born crying, but those cries signal the first stirring of language. Within a year or so, infants master the sound system of their language; a few years after that, they are engaging in conversations. This remarkable, species-specific ability to acquire any human language—“the language faculty”—raises important biological questions about language, including how it has evolved. This book by two distinguished scholars—a computer scientist and a linguist—addresses the enduring question of the evolution of language. Robert Berwick and Noam Chomsky explain that until recently the evolutionary question could not be properly posed, because we did not have a clear idea of how to define “language” and therefore what it was that had evolved. But since the Minimalist Program, developed by Chomsky and others, we know the key ingredients of language and can put together an account of the evolution of human language and what distinguishes us from all other animals. Berwick and Chomsky discuss the biolinguistic perspective on language, which views language as a particular object of the biological world; the computational efficiency of language as a system of thought and understanding; the tension between Darwin's idea of gradual change and our contemporary understanding about evolutionary change and language; and evidence from nonhuman animals, in particular vocal learning in songbirds.

The Evolution of Language

Download The Evolution of Language PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 052185993X
Total Pages : 625 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (218 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Evolution of Language by : W. Tecumseh Fitch

Download or read book The Evolution of Language written by W. Tecumseh Fitch and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2010-04 with total page 625 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book brings together the most important insights from the vast amount of literature on the origin of language.

The Symbolic Species: The Co-evolution of Language and the Brain

Download The Symbolic Species: The Co-evolution of Language and the Brain PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 13 : 0393343022
Total Pages : 532 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (933 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Symbolic Species: The Co-evolution of Language and the Brain by : Terrence W. Deacon

Download or read book The Symbolic Species: The Co-evolution of Language and the Brain written by Terrence W. Deacon and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 1998-04-17 with total page 532 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A work of enormous breadth, likely to pleasantly surprise both general readers and experts."—New York Times Book Review This revolutionary book provides fresh answers to long-standing questions of human origins and consciousness. Drawing on his breakthrough research in comparative neuroscience, Terrence Deacon offers a wealth of insights into the significance of symbolic thinking: from the co-evolutionary exchange between language and brains over two million years of hominid evolution to the ethical repercussions that followed man's newfound access to other people's thoughts and emotions. Informing these insights is a new understanding of how Darwinian processes underlie the brain's development and function as well as its evolution. In contrast to much contemporary neuroscience that treats the brain as no more or less than a computer, Deacon provides a new clarity of vision into the mechanism of mind. It injects a renewed sense of adventure into the experience of being human.

The Oxford Handbook of Language Evolution

Download The Oxford Handbook of Language Evolution PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199541116
Total Pages : 790 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (995 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Oxford Handbook of Language Evolution by : Maggie Tallerman

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Language Evolution written by Maggie Tallerman and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 790 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Leading scholars present critical accounts of every aspect of the field, including work in animal behaviour; anatomy, genetics and neurology; the prehistory of language; the development of our uniquely linguistic species; and language creation, transmission, and change.

Human Language

Download Human Language PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262042630
Total Pages : 753 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (62 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Human Language by : Peter Hagoort

Download or read book Human Language written by Peter Hagoort and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2019-10-29 with total page 753 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A unique overview of the human language faculty at all levels of organization. Language is not only one of the most complex cognitive functions that we command, it is also the aspect of the mind that makes us uniquely human. Research suggests that the human brain exhibits a language readiness not found in the brains of other species. This volume brings together contributions from a range of fields to examine humans' language capacity from multiple perspectives, analyzing it at genetic, neurobiological, psychological, and linguistic levels. In recent decades, advances in computational modeling, neuroimaging, and genetic sequencing have made possible new approaches to the study of language, and the contributors draw on these developments. The book examines cognitive architectures, investigating the functional organization of the major language skills; learning and development trajectories, summarizing the current understanding of the steps and neurocognitive mechanisms in language processing; evolutionary and other preconditions for communication by means of natural language; computational tools for modeling language; cognitive neuroscientific methods that allow observations of the human brain in action, including fMRI, EEG/MEG, and others; the neural infrastructure of language capacity; the genome's role in building and maintaining the language-ready brain; and insights from studying such language-relevant behaviors in nonhuman animals as birdsong and primate vocalization. Section editors Christian F. Beckmann, Carel ten Cate, Simon E. Fisher, Peter Hagoort, Evan Kidd, Stephen C. Levinson, James M. McQueen, Antje S. Meyer, David Poeppel, Caroline F. Rowland, Constance Scharff, Ivan Toni, Willem Zuidema

The Handbook of Historical Linguistics, Volume II

Download The Handbook of Historical Linguistics, Volume II PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
ISBN 13 : 111873226X
Total Pages : 705 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (187 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Handbook of Historical Linguistics, Volume II by : Richard D. Janda

Download or read book The Handbook of Historical Linguistics, Volume II written by Richard D. Janda and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2020-09-15 with total page 705 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An entirely new follow-up volume providing a detailed account of numerous additional issues, methods, and results that characterize current work in historical linguistics. This brand-new, second volume of The Handbook of Historical Linguistics is a complement to the well-established first volume first published in 2003. It includes extended content allowing uniquely comprehensive coverage of the study of language(s) over time. Though it adds fresh perspectives on several topics previously treated in the first volume, this Handbook focuses on extensions of diachronic linguistics beyond those key issues. This Handbook provides readers with studies of language change whose perspectives range from comparisons of large open vs. small closed corpora, via creolistics and linguistic contact in general, to obsolescence and endangerment of languages. Written by leading scholars in their respective fields, new chapters are offered on matters such as the origin of language, evidence from language for reconstructing human prehistory, invocations of language present in studies of language past, benefits of linguistic fieldwork for historical investigation, ways in which not only biological evolution but also field biology can serve as heuristics for research into the rise and spread of linguistic innovations, and more. Moreover, it: offers novel and broadened content complementing the earlier volume so as to provide the fullest available overview of a wholly engrossing field includes 23 all-new contributed chapters, treating some familiar themes from fresh perspectives but mostly covering entirely new topics features expanded discussion of material from language families other than Indo-European provides a multiplicity of views from numerous specialists in linguistic diachrony. The Handbook of Historical Linguistics, Volume II is an ideal book for undergraduate and graduate students in linguistics, researchers and professional linguists, as well as all those interested in the history of particular languages and the history of language more generally.

Language in Our Brain

Download Language in Our Brain PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262036924
Total Pages : 300 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (62 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Language in Our Brain by : Angela D. Friederici

Download or read book Language in Our Brain written by Angela D. Friederici and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2017-11-16 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive account of the neurobiological basis of language, arguing that species-specific brain differences may be at the root of the human capacity for language. Language makes us human. It is an intrinsic part of us, although we seldom think about it. Language is also an extremely complex entity with subcomponents responsible for its phonological, syntactic, and semantic aspects. In this landmark work, Angela Friederici offers a comprehensive account of these subcomponents and how they are integrated. Tracing the neurobiological basis of language across brain regions in humans and other primate species, she argues that species-specific brain differences may be at the root of the human capacity for language. Friederici shows which brain regions support the different language processes and, more important, how these brain regions are connected structurally and functionally to make language processes that take place in milliseconds possible. She finds that one particular brain structure (a white matter dorsal tract), connecting syntax-relevant brain regions, is present only in the mature human brain and only weakly present in other primate brains. Is this the “missing link” that explains humans' capacity for language? Friederici describes the basic language functions and their brain basis; the language networks connecting different language-related brain regions; the brain basis of language acquisition during early childhood and when learning a second language, proposing a neurocognitive model of the ontogeny of language; and the evolution of language and underlying neural constraints. She finds that it is the information exchange between the relevant brain regions, supported by the white matter tract, that is the crucial factor in both language development and evolution.

Grooming, Gossip, and the Evolution of Language

Download Grooming, Gossip, and the Evolution of Language PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780674363366
Total Pages : 244 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (633 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Grooming, Gossip, and the Evolution of Language by : Robin Ian MacDonald Dunbar

Download or read book Grooming, Gossip, and the Evolution of Language written by Robin Ian MacDonald Dunbar and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1996 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Here, the author examines gossip as a form of 'verbal grooming', and as a means of strengthening relationships. He challenges the idea that language developed during male activities such as hunting, and that it was actually amongst women that it evolved.

Grammatical Evolution

Download Grammatical Evolution PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN 13 : 1461504473
Total Pages : 157 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (615 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Grammatical Evolution by : Michael O'Neill

Download or read book Grammatical Evolution written by Michael O'Neill and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 157 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Grammatical Evolution: Evolutionary Automatic Programming in an Arbitrary Language provides the first comprehensive introduction to Grammatical Evolution, a novel approach to Genetic Programming that adopts principles from molecular biology in a simple and useful manner, coupled with the use of grammars to specify legal structures in a search. Grammatical Evolution's rich modularity gives a unique flexibility, making it possible to use alternative search strategies - whether evolutionary, deterministic or some other approach - and to even radically change its behavior by merely changing the grammar supplied. This approach to Genetic Programming represents a powerful new weapon in the Machine Learning toolkit that can be applied to a diverse set of problem domains.

Adam's Tongue

Download Adam's Tongue PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Hill and Wang
ISBN 13 : 1429930292
Total Pages : 295 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (299 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Adam's Tongue by : Derek Bickerton

Download or read book Adam's Tongue written by Derek Bickerton and published by Hill and Wang. This book was released on 2009-03-17 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How language evolved has been called "the hardest problem in science." In Adam's Tongue, Derek Bickerton—long a leading authority in this field—shows how and why previous attempts to solve that problem have fallen short. Taking cues from topics as diverse as the foraging strategies of ants, the distribution of large prehistoric herbivores, and the construction of ecological niches, Bickerton produces a dazzling new alternative to the conventional wisdom. Language is unique to humans, but it isn't the only thing that sets us apart from other species—our cognitive powers are qualitatively different. So could there be two separate discontinuities between humans and the rest of nature? No, says Bickerton; he shows how the mere possession of symbolic units—words—automatically opened a new and different cognitive universe, one that yielded novel innovations ranging from barbed arrowheads to the Apollo spacecraft. Written in Bickerton's lucid and irreverent style, this book is the first that thoroughly integrates the story of how language evolved with the story of how humans evolved. Sure to be controversial, it will make indispensable reading both for experts in the field and for every reader who has ever wondered how a species as remarkable as ours could have come into existence.

The Unfolding of Language

Download The Unfolding of Language PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Metropolitan Books
ISBN 13 : 1466837837
Total Pages : 372 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (668 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Unfolding of Language by : Guy Deutscher

Download or read book The Unfolding of Language written by Guy Deutscher and published by Metropolitan Books. This book was released on 2006-05-02 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Blending the spirit of Eats, Shoots & Leaves with the science of The Language Instinct, an original inquiry into the development of that most essential-and mysterious-of human creations: Language "Language is mankind's greatest invention-except, of course, that it was never invented." So begins linguist Guy Deutscher's enthralling investigation into the genesis and evolution of language. If we started off with rudimentary utterances on the level of "man throw spear," how did we end up with sophisticated grammars, enormous vocabularies, and intricately nuanced degrees of meaning? Drawing on recent groundbreaking discoveries in modern linguistics, Deutscher exposes the elusive forces of creation at work in human communication, giving us fresh insight into how language emerges, evolves, and decays. He traces the evolution of linguistic complexity from an early "Me Tarzan" stage to such elaborate single-word constructions as the Turkish sehirlilestiremediklerimizdensiniz ("you are one of those whom we couldn't turn into a town dweller"). Arguing that destruction and creation in language are intimately entwined, Deutscher shows how these processes are continuously in operation, generating new words, new structures, and new meanings. As entertaining as it is erudite, The Unfolding of Language moves nimbly from ancient Babylonian to American idiom, from the central role of metaphor to the staggering triumph of design that is the Semitic verb, to tell the dramatic story and explain the genius behind a uniquely human faculty.

The Truth about Language

Download The Truth about Language PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 022628719X
Total Pages : 273 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (262 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Truth about Language by : Michael C. Corballis

Download or read book The Truth about Language written by Michael C. Corballis and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2017-03-29 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Background to the problem -- The Rubicon -- Language as miracle -- Language and natural selection -- The mental prerequisites -- Thinking without language -- Mind reading -- Stories -- Constructing language -- Hands on to language -- Finding voice -- How language is structured -- Over the Rubicon

The Language Instinct

Download The Language Instinct PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Harper Collins
ISBN 13 : 0062032526
Total Pages : 578 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (62 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Language Instinct by : Steven Pinker

Download or read book The Language Instinct written by Steven Pinker and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2010-12-14 with total page 578 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A brilliant, witty, and altogether satisfying book." — New York Times Book Review The classic work on the development of human language by the world’s leading expert on language and the mind In The Language Instinct, the world's expert on language and mind lucidly explains everything you always wanted to know about language: how it works, how children learn it, how it changes, how the brain computes it, and how it evolved. With deft use of examples of humor and wordplay, Steven Pinker weaves our vast knowledge of language into a compelling story: language is a human instinct, wired into our brains by evolution. The Language Instinct received the William James Book Prize from the American Psychological Association and the Public Interest Award from the Linguistics Society of America. This edition includes an update on advances in the science of language since The Language Instinct was first published.