The Prehistory of Language (Studies in the Evolution of Language): 11 - Brossura

Brossura

ISBN 10: 019954588X ISBN 13: 9780199545889

Casa editrice: Oxford University Press, USA, 2009

Riassunto

'When, why, and how did language evolve?' 'Why do only humans have language?' This book looks at these and other questions about the origins and evolution of language. It does so via a rich diversity of perspectives, including social, cultural, archaeological, palaeoanthropological, musicological, anatomical, neurobiological, primatological, and linguistic. Among the subjects it considers are: how far sociality is a prerequisite for language; the evolutionary links between language and music; the relation between natural selection and niche construction; the origins of the lexicon; the role of social play in language development; the use of signs by great apes; the evolution of syntax; the evolutionary biology of language; the insights offered by Chomsky's biolinguistic approach to mind and language; the emergence of recursive language; the selectional advantages of the human vocal tract; and why women speak better than men.

The authors, drawn from all over the world, are prominent linguists, psychologists, cognitive scientists, archaeologists, primatologists, social anthropologists, and specialists in artificial intelligence. As well as explaining what is understood about the evolution of language, they look squarely at the formidable obstacles to knowing more - the absence of direct evidence, for example; the problems of using indirect evidence; the lack of a common conception of language; confusion about the operation of natural selection and other processes of change; the scope for misunderstanding in a multi-disciplinary field, and many more. Despite these difficulties, the authors in their stylish and readable contributions to this book are able to show just how much has been achieved in this most fruitful and fascinating area of research in the social, natural, and cognitive sciences.

Su questo libro

L'autore

Rudolf Botha is Professor of General Linguistics at the University of Stellenbosch, and a Fellow of the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study. His books include Form and Meaning in Word Formation: A Study of Afrikaans Reduplication (CUP 1988) and Unravelling the Evolution of Language (Elsevier 2003). Chris Knight is Professor of Anthropology at the University of East London. His publicatons include Blood Relations: Menstruation and the Origins of Culture (Yale UP 1995).

Contenuti

• 1: Rudolf Botha: Introduction: Rewards and Challenges of Multi-perspectival Work on the Evolution of Language and Speech
• 2: Robin Dunbar: Why Only Humans Have Language
• 3: Luc Steels: Is Sociality a Crucial Prerequisite for the Emergence of Language?
• 4: Steven Mithen: Holistic Communication and the Co-evolution of Language and Music: Resurrecting an Old Idea
• 5: Ian Cross and Ghofur Eliot Woodruff: Music as a Communicative Medium
• 6: John Odling-Smee and Kevin N. Laland: Cultural Niche construction: Evolution's Cradle of Language
• 7: Sonia Ragir and Sue Savage-Rumbaugh: Playing With Meaning: Normative Function and Structure in Play
• 8: David A. Leavens, Timothy P. Racine, and William D. Hopkins: The Ontogeny and Phylogeny of Non-verbal Deixis
• 9: Simone Pika and John C. Mitani: The Directed Scratch: Evidence for a Referential Gesture in Chimpanzees?
• 10: Maggie Tallerman: The Origins of the Lexicon: How a Word-store Evolved
• 11: Eric Reuland: Language-symbolization and Beyond
• 12: Elly van Gelderen: Grammaticalization From a Biolinguistic Perspective
• 13: Frederick L. Coolidge and Thomas Wynn: Recursion, Phonological Storage Capacity, and the Evolution of Modern Speech
• 14: Bart de Boer: Why Women Speak Better Than Men and its Significance for Evolution
• 15: Wendy K. WIlkins: Mosaic Neurobiology and Anatomical Plausibility
• References
• Index

Dettagli dell?edizione

• Editore: Oxford University Press, USA
• Data di pubblicazione: 2009
• ISBN 10: 019954588X
• ISBN 13: 9780199545889
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Lingua: Inglese
• Numero di pagine: 368
• Redattore: Botha Rudolf