Language PDF Download

Author: Otto Jespersen
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Language and languages
Languages : en
Pages : 462

View

Book Description

Author: Denis Bouchard
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199681627
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 402

View

Book Description
Denis Bouchard looks at how the human brain got the capacity for language and how language evolved. He argues that language is a system of signs and considers how these elements first came together in the brain. His account of language origins offers insights into language and to constructions that have defied decades of linguistic analysis.

Author: John Maynard Smith
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 019286209X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 191

View

Book Description
Presents, for the general readership, the novel picture of evolution proposed in the 1995 book, The major transitions in evolution.

Author: David F. Armstrong
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521467728
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 276

View

Book Description
This book proposes a radical alternative to dominant views of the evolution of language, in particular the origins of syntax. The authors draw on evidence from areas such as primatology, anthropology, and linguistics to present a groundbreaking account of the notion that language emerged through visible bodily action. Written in a clear and accessible style, Gesture and the Nature of Language will be indispensable reading for all those interested in the origins of language.

Author: Otto Jespersen
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135662886
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 451

View

Book Description
This book was first published in 1922, Language is a valuable contribution to the field of English Language and Linguistics.

Author: W. Tecumseh Fitch
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 052185993X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 625

View

Book Description
This book brings together the most important insights from the vast amount of literature on the origin of language.

Author: Daniel L. Everett
Publisher: Liveright Publishing
ISBN: 087140477X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 309

View

Book Description
A Buzzfeed Gift Guide Selection “Few books on the biological and cultural origin of humanity can be ranked as classics. I believe [this] will be one of them.” — Edward O. Wilson At the time of its publication, How Language Began received high acclaim for capturing the fascinating history of mankind’s most incredible creation. Deemed a “bombshell” linguist and “instant folk hero” by Tom Wolfe (Harper’s), Daniel L. Everett posits that the near- 7,000 languages that exist today are not only the product of one million years of evolution but also have allowed us to become Earth’s apex predator. Tracing 60,000 generations, Everett debunks long- held theories across a spectrum of disciplines to affi rm the idea that we are not born with an instinct for language. Woven with anecdotes of his nearly forty years of fi eldwork amongst Amazonian hunter- gatherers, this is a “completely enthralling” (Spectator) exploration of our humanity and a landmark study of what makes us human. “[An] ambitious text. . . . Everett’s amiable tone, and especially his captivating anecdotes . . . , will help the neophyte along.”— New York Times Book Review

Author: David F. Armstrong
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198036914
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 162

View

Book Description
In The Gestural Origin of Language, Sherman Wilcox and David Armstrong use evidence from and about sign languages to explore the origins of language as we know it today. According to their model, it is sign, not spoken languages, that is the original mode of human communication. The authors demonstrate that modern language is derived from practical actions and gestures that were increasingly recognized as having the potential to represent, and hence to communicate. In other words, the fundamental ability that allows us to use language is our ability to use pictures or icons, rather than linguistic symbols. Evidence from the human fossil record supports the authors' claim by showing that we were anatomically able to produce gestures and signs before we were able to speak fluently. Although speech evolved later as a secondary linguistic communication device that eventually replaced sign language as the primary mode of communication, speech has never entirely replaced signs and gestures. As the first comprehensive attempt to trace the origin of grammar to gesture, this volume will be an invaluable resource for students and professionals in psychology, linguistics, and philosophy.

Author: Antonino Pennisi
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319476882
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 297

View

Book Description
This book proposes a radically evolutionary approach to biolinguistics that consists in considering human language as a form of species-specific intelligence entirely embodied in the corporeal structures of Homo sapiens. The book starts with a historical reconstruction of two opposing biolinguistic models: the Chomskian Biolinguistic Model (CBM) and the Darwinian Biolinguistic Model (DBM). The second part compares the two models and develops into a complete reconsideration of the traditional biolinguistic issues in an evolutionary perspective, highlighting their potential influence on the paradigm of biologically oriented cognitive science. The third part formulates the philosophical, evolutionary and experimental basis of an extended theory of linguistic performativity within a naturalistic perspective of pragmatics of verbal language. The book proposes a model in which the continuity between human and non-human primates is linked to the gradual development of the articulatory and neurocerebral structures, and to a kind of prelinguistic pragmatics which characterizes the common nature of social learning. In contrast, grammatical, semantic and pragmatic skills that mark the learning of historical-natural languages are seen as a rapid acceleration of cultural evolution. The book makes clear that this acceleration will not necessarily favour the long-term adaptations for Homo sapiens.

Author: Michael C. Corballis
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022628719X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 273

View

Book Description
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