Adam's Tongue: How Humans Made Language, How Language Made Humans - Brossura

Bickerton, Derek

Brossura

ISBN 10: 0809016478 ISBN 13: 9780809016471

Casa editrice: Hill & Wang Pub, 2010

Riassunto

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 to thoroughly integrate 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.'

Su questo libro

L'autore:

Derek Bickerton is professor emeritus of linguistics at the University of Hawaii. His most recent book, Bastard Tongues, was published by Hill and Wang in 2008.

Product Description:

Book by Bickerton Derek

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Hill & Wang Pub
• Data di pubblicazione: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0809016478
• ISBN 13: 9780809016471
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero di pagine: 286