The Boundaries of Babel, second edition

Download The Boundaries of Babel, second edition PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262329689
Total Pages : 329 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (623 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Boundaries of Babel, second edition by : Andrea Moro

Download or read book The Boundaries of Babel, second edition written by Andrea Moro and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2015-11-20 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The new edition of a pioneering book that examines research at the intersection of contemporary theoretical linguistics and the cognitive neurosciences. In The Boundaries of Babel, Andrea Moro describes an encounter between two cultures: contemporary theoretical linguistics and the cognitive neurosciences. As a leading theoretical linguist in the generative tradition and also a neuroscientist, Moro is uniquely equipped to tell this story. Moro examines what he calls the “hidden” revolution in contemporary science: the discovery that the number of possible grammars is not infinite and that their number is biologically limited. This will require us to rethink not just the fundamentals of linguistics and neurosciences but also our view of the human mind. Moro searches for neurobiological correlates of “the boundaries of Babel”—the constraints on the apparent chaotic variation in human languages—by using an original experimental design based on artificial languages exploiting neuroimaging techniques. This second edition includes a new chapter in which Moro extends the exploration of the boundaries of Babel in search of the source of order with which all human languages are endowed. Reflecting on the emerging methodology that obtains physiological data from awake brain surgery, Moro shifts from considering where the neurophysiological processes underlying linguistic competence take place—that is, where neurons are activated—to considering the neuronal code involved in these processes—that is, what neurons communicate to each other. This edition also features a substantive new foreword by Noam Chomsky synthesizing the major issues theoretical syntax will face in the near future.

The Boundaries of Babel, second edition

Download The Boundaries of Babel, second edition PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262029855
Total Pages : 329 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (62 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Boundaries of Babel, second edition by : Andrea Moro

Download or read book The Boundaries of Babel, second edition written by Andrea Moro and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2015-11-13 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The new edition of a pioneering book that examines research at the intersection of contemporary theoretical linguistics and the cognitive neurosciences. In The Boundaries of Babel, Andrea Moro describes an encounter between two cultures: contemporary theoretical linguistics and the cognitive neurosciences. As a leading theoretical linguist in the generative tradition and also a neuroscientist, Moro is uniquely equipped to tell this story. Moro examines what he calls the “hidden” revolution in contemporary science: the discovery that the number of possible grammars is not infinite and that their number is biologically limited. This will require us to rethink not just the fundamentals of linguistics and neurosciences but also our view of the human mind. Moro searches for neurobiological correlates of “the boundaries of Babel”—the constraints on the apparent chaotic variation in human languages—by using an original experimental design based on artificial languages exploiting neuroimaging techniques. This second edition includes a new chapter in which Moro extends the exploration of the boundaries of Babel in search of the source of order with which all human languages are endowed. Reflecting on the emerging methodology that obtains physiological data from awake brain surgery, Moro shifts from considering where the neurophysiological processes underlying linguistic competence take place—that is, where neurons are activated—to considering the neuronal code involved in these processes—that is, what neurons communicate to each other. This edition also features a substantive new foreword by Noam Chomsky synthesizing the major issues theoretical syntax will face in the near future.

Impossible Languages

Download Impossible Languages PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262034891
Total Pages : 157 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (62 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Impossible Languages by : Andrea Moro

Download or read book Impossible Languages written by Andrea Moro and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2016-09-02 with total page 157 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An investigation into the possibility of impossible languages, searching for the indelible “fingerprint” of human language. Can there be such a thing as an impossible human language? A biologist could describe an impossible animal as one that goes against the physical laws of nature (entropy, for example, or gravity). Are there any such laws that constrain languages? In this book, Andrea Moro—a distinguished linguist and neuroscientist—investigates the possibility of impossible languages, searching, as he does so, for the indelible “fingerprint” of human language. Moro shows how the very notion of impossible languages has helped shape research on the ultimate aim of linguistics: to define the class of possible human languages. He takes us beyond the boundaries of Babel, to the set of properties that, despite appearances, all languages share, and explores the sources of that order, drawing on scientific experiments he himself helped design. Moro compares syntax to the reverse side of a tapestry revealing a hidden and apparently intricate structure. He describes the brain as a sieve, considers the reality of (linguistic) trees, and listens for the sound of thought by recording electrical activity in the brain. Words and sentences, he tells us, are like symphonies and constellations: they have no content of their own; they exist because we listen to them and look at them. We are part of the data.

Babel in Zion

Download Babel in Zion PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Yale University Press
ISBN 13 : 0300197489
Total Pages : 328 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (1 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Babel in Zion by : Liora Halperin

Download or read book Babel in Zion written by Liora Halperin and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2015-01-01 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The promotion and vernacularization of Hebrew, traditionally a language of Jewish liturgy and study, was a central accomplishment of the Zionist movement in Palestine. Viewing twentieth-century history through the lens of language, author Liora Halperin questions the accepted scholarly narrative of a Zionist move away from multilingualism during the years following World War I, demonstrating how Jews in Palestine remained connected linguistically by both preference and necessity to a world outside the boundaries of the pro-Hebrew community even as it promoted Hebrew and achieved that language's dominance. The story of language encounters in Jewish Palestine is a fascinating tale of shifting power relationships, both locally and globally. Halperin's absorbing study explores how a young national community was compelled to modify the dictates of Hebrew exclusivity as it negotiated its relationships with its Jewish population, Palestinian Arabs, the British, and others outside the margins of the national project and ultimately came to terms with the limitations of its hegemony in an interconnected world.

The Power of Babel

Download The Power of Babel PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Harper Collins
ISBN 13 : 006052085X
Total Pages : 354 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (65 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Power of Babel by : John McWhorter

Download or read book The Power of Babel written by John McWhorter and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2003-01-07 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There are approximately six thousand languages on Earth today, each a descendant of the tongue first spoken by Homo sapiens some 150,000 years ago. While laying out how languages mix and mutate over time, linguistics professor John McWhorter reminds us of the variety within the species that speaks them, and argues that, contrary to popular perception, language is not immutable and hidebound, but a living, dynamic entity that adapts itself to an ever-changing human environment. Full of humor and imaginative insight, The Power of Babel draws its illustrative examples from languages around the world, including pidgins, Creoles, and nonstandard dialects.

I Speak, Therefore I Am

Download I Speak, Therefore I Am PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Columbia University Press
ISBN 13 : 0231533926
Total Pages : 97 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (315 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis I Speak, Therefore I Am by : Andrea Moro

Download or read book I Speak, Therefore I Am written by Andrea Moro and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2016-07-05 with total page 97 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There are no men so dull and stupid, not even idiots, as to be incapable of joining together different words, and thereby constructing a declaration by which to make their thoughts understood.... On the other hand, there is no other animal, however perfect or happily circumstanced which can do the like.—Descartes Language is more like a snowflake than a giraffe's neck. Its specific properties are determined by laws of nature, they have not developed through the accumulation of historical accidents.—Noam Chomsky In I Speak, Therefore I Am, the Italian linguist and neuroscientist Andrea Moro composes an album of his favorite quotations from the history of linguistics, beginning with the Book of Genesis and the power of naming and concluding with Noam Chomsky's metaphor that language is a snowflake. Moro's seventeen linguistic thoughts and his commentary on them display the humanness of language: our need to name and interpret this world and create imaginary ones, to express and understand ourselves. This book is sure to delight anyone who enjoys the ineffable paradox that is human language.

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.

A Brief History of the Verb To Be

Download A Brief History of the Verb To Be PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262037122
Total Pages : 306 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (62 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis A Brief History of the Verb To Be by : Andrea Moro

Download or read book A Brief History of the Verb To Be written by Andrea Moro and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2018-01-12 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A journey through linguistic time and space, from Aristotle through the twentieth century's “era of syntax,” in search of a dangerous verb and its significance. Beginning with the early works of Aristotle, the interpretation of the verb to be runs through Western linguistic thought like Ariadne's thread. As it unravels, it becomes intertwined with philosophy, metaphysics, logic, and even with mathematics—so much so that Bertrand Russell showed no hesitation in proclaiming that the verb to be was a disgrace to the human race. With the conviction that this verb penetrates modern linguistic thinking, creating scandal in its wake and, like a Trojan horse of linguistics, introducing disruptive elements that lead us to rethink radically the most basic structure of human language—the sentence—Andrea Moro reconstructs this history. From classical Greece to the dueling masters of medieval logic through the revolutionary geniuses from the seventeenth century to the Enlightenment, and finally to the twentieth century—when linguistics became a driving force and model for neuroscience—the plot unfolds like a detective story, culminating in the discovery of a formula that solves the problem even as it raises new questions—about language, evolution, and the nature and structure of the human mind. While Moro never resorts to easy shortcuts, A Brief History of the Verb To Be isn't burdened with inaccessible formulas and always refers to the broader picture of mind and language. In this way it serves as an engaging introduction to a new field of cutting-edge research.

The Boundaries of Monotheism

Download The Boundaries of Monotheism PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 9004173161
Total Pages : 257 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (41 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Boundaries of Monotheism by : Anne-Marie Korte

Download or read book The Boundaries of Monotheism written by Anne-Marie Korte and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2009 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the significance of monotheism in modern western culture, taking into account both its problematic and promising aspects? Biblical texts and the biblical faith traditions bear a continuous, polemical tension between exclusive and inclusive perceptions and interpretations of monotheism. Western monotheism proves itself to be multi-significant and heterogeneous, producing boundary-setting as well as boundary-crossing tendencies, is the common thesis of the authors of this book, who have been collectively debating this theme for two years in an interdisciplinary scholarly setting. Their contributions range from the fields of biblical and religious studies, history and philosophy of religion, systematic theology, to gender studies in theology and religion.The authors also explain the particular contribution of their own theological discipline to these debates.

The Secrets of Words

Download The Secrets of Words PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262369044
Total Pages : 138 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (623 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Secrets of Words by : Noam Chomsky

Download or read book The Secrets of Words written by Noam Chomsky and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2022-05-03 with total page 138 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Two distinguished linguists on language, the history of science, misplaced euphoria, surprising facts, and potentially permanent mysteries. In The Secrets of Words, influential linguist Noam Chomsky and his longtime colleague Andrea Moro have a wide-ranging conversation, touching on such topics as language and linguistics, the history of science, and the relation between language and the brain. Moro draws Chomsky out on today’s misplaced euphoria about artificial intelligence (Chomsky sees “lots of hype and propaganda” coming from Silicon Valley), the study of the brain (Chomsky points out that findings from brain studies in the 1950s never made it into that era’s psychology), and language acquisition by children. Chomsky in turn invites Moro to describe his own experiments, which proved that there exist impossible languages for the brain, languages that show surprising properties and reveal unexpected secrets of the human mind. Chomsky once said, “It is important to learn to be surprised by simple facts”—“an expression of yours that has represented a fundamental turning point in my own personal life,” says Moro—and this is something of a theme in their conversation. Another theme is that not everything can be known; there may be permanent mysteries, about language and other matters. Not all words will give up their secrets.

Globalization and Media

Download Globalization and Media PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 0742568369
Total Pages : 189 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (425 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Globalization and Media by : Jack Lule

Download or read book Globalization and Media written by Jack Lule and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2012 with total page 189 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The global village, however, is not the blissful utopia that McLuhan predicted.

Globalization and Media

Download Globalization and Media PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 1538106280
Total Pages : 221 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (381 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Globalization and Media by : Jack Lule

Download or read book Globalization and Media written by Jack Lule and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2017-11-17 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The fully updated third edition of this lively and accessible book argues for the central role of media in understanding globalization. Indeed, Jack Lule convincingly shows that globalization could not have occurred without media. From earliest times, humans have used media to explore, settle, and globalize their world. In our day, media has made the world progressively “smaller” as nations and cultures come into increasing contact. Decades ago Marshall McLuhan prophesied that media technology would transform the world into a “global village.” Slowly, fitfully, his vision is being fulfilled. The global village, however, is not the blissful utopia that McLuhan predicted. Nor, in a more modern formulation, is the world flat, with playing fields leveled and opportunities for all. Instead, Lule argues, globalization and media are combining to create a divided world of gated communities and ghettos, borders and boundaries, suffering and surfeit, beauty and decay, surveillance and violence. By breaking down the economic, cultural, and political impact of media, and through a rich set of case studies from around the globe, the author describes a global village of Babel—invoking the biblical town punished for its vanity by seeing its citizens scattered, its language confounded, and its destiny shaped by strife.

Memoriae Igor M. Diakonoff

Download Memoriae Igor M. Diakonoff PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Eisenbrauns
ISBN 13 : 9781575061238
Total Pages : 816 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (612 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Memoriae Igor M. Diakonoff by : Leonid Efimovich Kogan

Download or read book Memoriae Igor M. Diakonoff written by Leonid Efimovich Kogan and published by Eisenbrauns. This book was released on 2005 with total page 816 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The year 2005 marked the 90th anniversary of the birth of Igor Diakonoff (1915-1999). A classical Semitist in educational background, Diakonoff was most influential in his principal field of research--Assyriology. However, Diakonoff was also broadly interested in various aspects of ancient Near Eastern studies, notably Mesopotamian history, Semitic and Afroasiatic linguistics, and biblical studies. Although not major domains of Diakonoff's scholarship, Biblical Hebrew and the ancient Near Eastern background of the Old Testament were areas of expertise that made him one of the leading figures of biblical studies in Russia. For several decades Diakonoff was a "live bridge" between ancient Near Eastern and Semitic scholars working in Russia and the international scholarly community. Fittingly, this volume of Babel & Bibel in memory of Diakonoff contains essays, short notes, and reviews by scholars from the Russian and international scholarly community on topics in ancient Near Eastern, Semitic and Afroasiatic, and Old Testament studies. The contributors include A. Archi, G. F. del Monte, G. del Olmo Lete, J.-M. Durand, B. R. Foster, P. Franzaroli, S. Loesov, J. Marzahn, J. Pasquali, W. Sommerfeld, K. Markina, N. Roudik, M. P. Streck, M. V. Tonietti, W. R. Garr, K. Jongeling, M. Seleznev, V. Blazek, M. Bulakh, T. Frolova, J. Huehnergard, R. M. Kerr, L. Kogan, A. Militarev, J. Sanmartin, G. Takacs, A. Zaborski, N. V. Koslova, S. Loesov, and L. M. Dreyer.

Babel’s Tower Translated

Download Babel’s Tower Translated PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 9004248617
Total Pages : 377 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (42 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Babel’s Tower Translated by : Phillip Michael Sherman

Download or read book Babel’s Tower Translated written by Phillip Michael Sherman and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2013-04-15 with total page 377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Babel's Tower Translated, Phillip Sherman explores the narrative of Genesis 11 and its reception and interpretation in several Second Temple and Early Rabbinic texts (e.g., Jubilees, Philo, Genesis Rabbah). The account of the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9) is famously ambiguous. The meaning of the narrative and the actions of both the human characters and the Israelite deity defy any easy explanation. This work explores how changing historical and hermeneutical realities altered and shifted the meaning of the text in Jewish antiquity.

Impossible Languages

Download Impossible Languages PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262549239
Total Pages : 157 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (625 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Impossible Languages by : Andrea Moro

Download or read book Impossible Languages written by Andrea Moro and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2023-09-19 with total page 157 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An investigation into the possibility of impossible languages, searching for the indelible “fingerprint” of human language. Can there be such a thing as an impossible human language? A biologist could describe an impossible animal as one that goes against the physical laws of nature (entropy, for example, or gravity). Are there any such laws that constrain languages? In this book, Andrea Moro—a distinguished linguist and neuroscientist—investigates the possibility of impossible languages, searching, as he does so, for the indelible “fingerprint” of human language. Moro shows how the very notion of impossible languages has helped shape research on the ultimate aim of linguistics: to define the class of possible human languages. He takes us beyond the boundaries of Babel, to the set of properties that, despite appearances, all languages share, and explores the sources of that order, drawing on scientific experiments he himself helped design. Moro compares syntax to the reverse side of a tapestry revealing a hidden and apparently intricate structure. He describes the brain as a sieve, considers the reality of (linguistic) trees, and listens for the sound of thought by recording electrical activity in the brain. Words and sentences, he tells us, are like symphonies and constellations: they have no content of their own; they exist because we listen to them and look at them. We are part of the data.

Beyond Babel

Download Beyond Babel PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1108493009
Total Pages : 321 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (84 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Beyond Babel by : Larissa Brewer-García

Download or read book Beyond Babel written by Larissa Brewer-García and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-08-06 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines how black intermediaries in colonial Spanish America influenced written portrayals of virtuous and beautiful blackness.

The Tongue of Adam

Download The Tongue of Adam PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : New Directions Publishing
ISBN 13 : 0811224945
Total Pages : 68 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (112 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Tongue of Adam by : Abdelfattah Kilito

Download or read book The Tongue of Adam written by Abdelfattah Kilito and published by New Directions Publishing. This book was released on 2016-11-22 with total page 68 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A playful and erudite look at the origins of language In the beginning there was one language—one tongue that Adam used to compose the first poem, an elegy for Abel. “These days, no one bothers to ask about the tongue of Adam. It is a naive question, vaguely embarrassing and irksome, like questions posed by children, which one can only answer rather stupidly.” So begins Abdelfattah Kilito’s The Tongue of Adam, a delightful series of lectures. With a Borgesian flair for riddles, stories, and subtle scholarly distinctions, Kilito presents an assortment of discussions related to Adam’s tongue, including translation, comparative religion, and lexicography: for example, how, from Babel onward, can we explain the plurality of language? Or can Adam’s poetry be judged aesthetically, the same as any other poem? Drawing from the commentators of the Koran to Walter Benjamin, from the esoteric speculations of Judaism to Herodotus, The Tongue of Adam is a nimble book about the mysterious rise of humankind’s multilingualism.