The Evolution of Language Out of Pre-language

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Publisher : John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN 13 : 9789027229595
Total Pages : 410 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (295 download)

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Book Synopsis The Evolution of Language Out of Pre-language by : Talmy Givón

Download or read book The Evolution of Language Out of Pre-language written by Talmy Givón and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2002-01-01 with total page 410 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The contributors to this volume are linguists, psychologists, neuroscientists, primatologists, and anthropologists who share the assumption that language, just as mind and brain, are products of biological evolution. The rise of human language is not viewed as a serendipitous mutation that gave birth to a unique linguistic organ, but as a gradual, adaptive extension of pre-existing mental capacities and brain structures. The contributors carefully study brain mechanisms, diachronic change, language acquisition, and the parallels between cognitive and linguistic structures to weave a web of hypotheses and suggestive empirical findings on the origins of language and the connections of language to other human capacities. The chapters discuss brain pathways that support linguistic processing; origins of specific linguistic features in temporal and hierarchical structures of the mind; the possible co-evolution of language and the reasoning about mental states; and the aspects of language learning that may serve as models of evolutionary change.

The Evolution of Language Out of Pre-language

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Author :
Publisher : John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN 13 : 9027229600
Total Pages : 404 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (272 download)

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Book Synopsis The Evolution of Language Out of Pre-language by : Talmy Givón

Download or read book The Evolution of Language Out of Pre-language written by Talmy Givón and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2002-01-01 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The contributors to this volume are linguists, psychologists, neuroscientists, primatologists, and anthropologists who share the assumption that language, just as mind and brain, are products of biological evolution. The rise of human language is not viewed as a serendipitous mutation that gave birth to a unique linguistic organ, but as a gradual, adaptive extension of pre-existing mental capacities and brain structures. The contributors carefully study brain mechanisms, diachronic change, language acquisition, and the parallels between cognitive and linguistic structures to weave a web of hypotheses and suggestive empirical findings on the origins of language and the connections of language to other human capacities. The chapters discuss brain pathways that support linguistic processing; origins of specific linguistic features in temporal and hierarchical structures of the mind; the possible co-evolution of language and the reasoning about mental states; and the aspects of language learning that may serve as models of evolutionary change.

The Evolution of Human Language

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Publisher : John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN 13 : 902729545X
Total Pages : 254 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (272 download)

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Book Synopsis The Evolution of Human Language by : Wolfgang Wildgen

Download or read book The Evolution of Human Language written by Wolfgang Wildgen and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2004-06-30 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Wolfgang Wildgen presents three perspectives on the evolution of language as a key element in the evolution of mankind in terms of the development of human symbol use. (1) He approaches this question by constructing possible scenarios in which mechanisms necessary for symbolic behavior could have developed, on the basis of the state of the art in evolutionary anthropology and genetics. (2) Non-linguistic symbolic behavior such as cave art is investigated as an important clue to the developmental background to the origin of language. Creativity and innovation and a population's ability to integrate individual experiments are considered with regard to historical examples of symbolic creativity in the visual arts and natural sciences. (3) Probable linguistic 'fossils' of such linguistic innovations are examined. The results of this study allow for new proposals for a 'protolanguage' and for a theory of language within a broader philosophical and semiotic framework, and raises interesting questions as to human consciousness, universal grammar, and linguistic methodology. (Series B)

The Biology and Evolution of Language

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Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780674074132
Total Pages : 398 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (741 download)

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Book Synopsis The Biology and Evolution of Language by : Philip Lieberman

Download or read book The Biology and Evolution of Language written by Philip Lieberman and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1984 with total page 398 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book synthesizes much of the exciting recent research in the biology of language. Drawing on data from anatomy, neurophysiology, physiology, and behavioral biology, Philip Lieberman develops a new approach to the puzzle of language, arguing that it is the result of many evolutionary compromises. Within his discussion, Lieberman skillfully addresses matters as various as the theory of neoteny (which he refutes), the mating calls of bullfrogs, ape language, dyslexia, and computer-implemented models of the brain.

Unravelling the Evolution of Language

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Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 9004487204
Total Pages : 256 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (44 download)

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Book Synopsis Unravelling the Evolution of Language by : Rudolf P. Botha

Download or read book Unravelling the Evolution of Language written by Rudolf P. Botha and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2021-11-22 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What blocks the way to a better understanding of language evolution, it is widely held, is above all a paucity of factual evidence. Not so, argues Unravelling the Evolution of Language. This book finds the main obstacle, instead, in a poverty of a specific kind of theory—restrictive theory. It shows, too, that this poverty of restrictive theory is one of the root causes of the paucity of factual evidence. "Unravelling"...takes it that a theory of a thing T—for example, language—is restrictive if it gives us a basis for distinguishing T in a non-arbitrary way from all things that are in fact distinct from it, including those that happen to be related to it. The book then argues in detail that much of the recent work on language evolution proceeds from loose assumptions, rather than restrictive theories, about a number of crucial "things": The entities, prelinguistic or linguistic, that are believed to have undergone evolution; the processes by which these entities are believed to have evolved; the ways in which these (pre)linguistic entities link up with entities that are believed to be correlates of them; the sources of data that are believed to yield indirect evidence about the evolution of language; and the factors that add to or subtract from the scientific substance of accounts of language evolution. In support of its main argument, Unravelling the Evolution of Language puts forward detailed analyses of various recent accounts of language evolution, including co-optationist accounts by Noam Chomsky, Stephen Jay Gould, Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini and Lyle Jenkins preadaptationist accounts by Philip Lieberman, Wendy Wilkins, Jenny Wakefield, Andrew Carstairs-McCarthy, William Calvin and Derek Bickerton adaptationist accounts by Steven Pinker, Paul Bloom and others. This means that Unravelling...as it builds its main argument, also offers an appraisal of some significant contributions to recent work on language evolution.

Language Evolution

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Publisher : OUP Oxford
ISBN 13 : 0191581666
Total Pages : 418 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (915 download)

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Book Synopsis Language Evolution by : Morten H. Christiansen

Download or read book Language Evolution written by Morten H. Christiansen and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2003-07-24 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is it that makes us human? This is one of the most challenging and important questions we face. Our species' defining characteristic is language - we appear to be unique in the natural world in having such an incredibly open-ended system for putting thoughts into words. If we are to truly understand ourselves as a species we must understand the origins of this strange and unique ability. To do so, we need to answer some of the most intriguing questions in contemporary scientific research: Where did language come from? How did it evolve? Why are we unique in possessing it? This book, for the first time, brings together the leading thinkers who are trying to unlock the puzzle of language evolution. Here we see the latest ideas and theories from fields as diverse as anthropology, archaeology, artificial life, biology, cognitive science, linguistics, neuroscience, and psychology. In a series of seventeen well-written and accessible chapters we get an unrivalled view of the state of the art in this exciting area. Current controversies are revealed and new perspectives uncovered, in a clear and readable guide to the latest theories. This collection marks a major step forward in our quest to understand the origins and evolution of human language. In doing so it sheds new light on the process of evolution, the workings of the brain, the structure of language, and - most importantly - what it means to be human. Language Evolution is essential reading for researchers and students working in the areas covered, and has been used as a textbook for courses in the field. It will also attract the general reader who wants to know more about this fascinating subject.

Why Only Us

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Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262034247
Total Pages : 229 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (62 download)

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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 2016 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 Human Language

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Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780521736251
Total Pages : 280 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (362 download)

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Book Synopsis The Evolution of Human Language by : Richard K. Larson

Download or read book The Evolution of Human Language written by Richard K. Larson and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2010-01-07 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The way language as a human faculty has evolved is a question that preoccupies researchers from a wide spread of disciplines. In this book, a team of writers has been brought together to examine the evolution of language from a variety of such standpoints, including language's genetic basis, the anthropological context of its appearance, its formal structure, its relation to systems of cognition and thought, as well as its possible evolutionary antecedents. The book includes Hauser, Chomsky, and Fitch's seminal and provocative essay on the subject, 'The Faculty of Language,' and charts the progress of research in this active and highly controversial field since its publication in 2002. This timely volume will be welcomed by researchers and students in a number of disciplines, including linguistics, evolutionary biology, psychology, and cognitive science.

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

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Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 13 : 0393343022
Total Pages : 528 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (933 download)

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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 528 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.

Evolution of Communicative Flexibility

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 376 pages
Book Rating : 4.F/5 ( download)

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Book Synopsis Evolution of Communicative Flexibility by : D. Kimbrough Oller

Download or read book Evolution of Communicative Flexibility written by D. Kimbrough Oller and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Experts investigate communicative flexibility (in both form and usage of signals) as the foundation of the evolution of complex communication systems, including human language. The evolutionary roots of human communication are difficult to trace, but recent comparative research suggests that the first key step in that evolutionary history may have been the establishment of basic communicative flexibility--the ability to vocalize freely combined with the capability to coordinate vocalization with communicative intent. The contributors to this volume investigate how some species (particularly ancient hominids) broke free of the constraints of "fixed signals," actions that were evolved to communicate but lack the flexibility of language--a newborn infant's cry, for example, always signals distress and has a stereotypical form not modifiable by the crying baby. Fundamentally, the contributors ask what communicative flexibility is and what evolutionary conditions can produce it. The accounts offered in these chapters are notable for taking the question of language origins farther back in evolutionary time than in much previous work. Many contributors address the very earliest communicative break of the hominid line from the primate background; others examine the evolutionary origins of flexibility in, for example, birds and marine mammals. The volume's interdisciplinary theoretical perspectives illuminate issues that are on the cutting edge of recent research on this topic. Contributors Stéphanie Barbu, Curt Burgess, Josep Call, Laurance Doyle, Julia Fischer, Michael Goldstein, Ulrike Griebel, Kurt Hammerschmidt, Sean Hanser, Martine Hausberger, Laurence Henry, Allison Kaufman, Stan Kuczaj, Robert F. Lachlan, Brian MacWhinney, Radhika Makecha, Brenda McCowan, D. Kimbrough Oller, Michael Owren, Ron Schusterman, Charles T. Snowdon, Kim Sterelny, Benoît Testé, Gert Westermann

Grooming, Gossip, and the Evolution of Language

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

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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.

Reflections on language evolution

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Publisher : Language Science Press
ISBN 13 : 3961103283
Total Pages : 76 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (611 download)

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Book Synopsis Reflections on language evolution by : Cedric Boeckx

Download or read book Reflections on language evolution written by Cedric Boeckx and published by Language Science Press. This book was released on with total page 76 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This essay reflects on the fact that as we learn more about the biological underpinnings of our language faculty, the dominant evolutionary narrative coming out of the linguistic tradition most explicitly oriented towards biology ("biolinguistics") appears increasingly implausible. This text offers ways of opening up linguistic inquiry and fostering interdisciplinarity, taking advantage of new opportunities to provide quantitative, testable hypotheses concerning the complex evolutionary path that led to the modern human language faculty. The essay is structured around three main themes: (i) renewed appreciation for the comparative method applied to cognitive questions, leading to the identification of elementary but fundamental abstractions in non-linguistic species relevant to language; (ii) awareness of the conceptual gaps between disciplines, and the need to carefully link genotype and phenotype without bypassing any "intermediate" levels of description (certainly not the brain); and (iii) adoption of a "philosophical" outlook that puts the complexity of biological entities front and center.

The Origins and Prehistory of Language

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 256 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

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Book Synopsis The Origins and Prehistory of Language by : Géza Révész

Download or read book The Origins and Prehistory of Language written by Géza Révész and published by . This book was released on 1956 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Animal Communication Theory

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Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1107013100
Total Pages : 471 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (7 download)

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Book Synopsis Animal Communication Theory by : Ulrich Stegmann

Download or read book Animal Communication Theory written by Ulrich Stegmann and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-05-02 with total page 471 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A valuable overview and analysis of foundational concepts in animal behaviour studies, including information, meaning, communication, signals and cues. Its comprehensive introduction and numerous illustrations will make it accessible to students and researchers from a wide variety of academic backgrounds, ranging from ethology and evolutionary biology to philosophy of mind.

The Oxford Handbook of Language Evolution

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

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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.

The Making of Language

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 216 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

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Book Synopsis The Making of Language by : Mike Beaken

Download or read book The Making of Language written by Mike Beaken and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An introduction to the evolution of language from gestural communication to the development of complex syntax. Beaken synthesizes advances in scientific knowledge based on archaeological and fossil evidence, primate study and new techniques in historical language analysis, and re-examines language origins from the point of view of a linguist. Countering Pinker's The Language Instinct, Beaken refutes claims for an innate biological capacity for language and demonstrates that both the origin and form of language can be explained in terms of human activity. He shows how human beings made their own language in the process of collective labour and the social interactions and relations which surround the immediate tasks for the survival of human groups.

The Interactional Instinct

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Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199888833
Total Pages : 248 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (998 download)

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Book Synopsis The Interactional Instinct by : Namhee Lee

Download or read book The Interactional Instinct written by Namhee Lee and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2009-05-21 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Interactional Instinct explores the evolution of language from the theoretical view that language could have emerged without a biologically instantiated Universal Grammar. In the first part of the book, the authors speculate that a hominid group with a lexicon of about 600 words could combine these items to make larger meanings. Combinations that are successfully produced, comprehended, and learned become part of the language. Any combination that is incompatible with human mental capacities is abandoned. The authors argue for the emergence of language structure through interaction constrained by human psychology and physiology. In the second part of the book, the authors argue that language acquisition is based on an "interactional instinct" that emotionally entrains the infant on caregivers. This relationship provides children with a motivational and attentional mechanism that ensures their acquisition of language. In adult second language acquisition, the interactional instinct is no longer operating, but in some individuals with sufficient aptitude and motivation, successful second-language acquisition can be achieved. The Interactional Instinct presents a theory of language based on linguistic, evolutionary, and biological evidence indicating that language is a culturally inherited artifact that requires no a priori hard wiring of linguistic knowledge.