Darwinian Biolinguistics
Title | Darwinian Biolinguistics PDF eBook |
Author | Antonino Pennisi |
Publisher | Springer |
Pages | 297 |
Release | 2016-12-15 |
Genre | Language Arts & Disciplines |
ISBN | 3319476882 |
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.
Darwinism and the Linguistic Image
Title | Darwinism and the Linguistic Image PDF eBook |
Author | Stephen G. Alter |
Publisher | |
Pages | 224 |
Release | 1999 |
Genre | Biography & Autobiography |
ISBN |
"A rich and rewarding account of the often subtle connections that bound the nineteenth-century sciences of language and life." -- British Journal of the History of Science
Biolinguistics
Title | Biolinguistics PDF eBook |
Author | Lyle Jenkins |
Publisher | Cambridge University Press |
Pages | 292 |
Release | 2000-03-13 |
Genre | Language Arts & Disciplines |
ISBN | 9781139426411 |
This book investigates the nature of human language and its importance for the study of the mind. In particular, it examines current work on the biology of language. Lyle Jenkins reviews the evidence that language is best characterized by a generative grammar of the kind introduced by Noam Chomsky in the 1950s and developed in various directions since that time. He then discusses research into the development of language which tries to capture both the underlying universality of human language, as well as the diversity found in individual languages (Universal Grammar). Finally, he discusses a variety of approaches to language design and the evolution of language. An important theme is the integration of biolinguistics into the natural sciences - the 'unification problem'. Jenkins also answers criticisms of the biolinguistic approach from a number of other perspectives, including evolutionary psychology, cognitive science, connectionism and ape language research, among others.
Selfish Sounds and Linguistic Evolution
Title | Selfish Sounds and Linguistic Evolution PDF eBook |
Author | Nikolaus Ritt |
Publisher | Cambridge University Press |
Pages | 364 |
Release | 2004-05-27 |
Genre | Language Arts & Disciplines |
ISBN | 9780521826716 |
Publisher Description
The Biolinguistic Enterprise
Title | The Biolinguistic Enterprise PDF eBook |
Author | Anna Maria Di Sciullo |
Publisher | Oxford University Press |
Pages | 576 |
Release | 2011-03-17 |
Genre | Language Arts & Disciplines |
ISBN | 0199553270 |
This book, by leading scholars, represents some of the main work in progress in biolinguistics. It offers fresh perspectives on language evolution and variation, new developments in theoretical linguistics, and insights on the relations between variation in language and variation in biology. The authors address the Darwinian questions on the origin and evolution of language from a minimalist perspective, and provide elegant solutions to the evolutionary gap between human language and communication in all other organisms. They consider language variation in the context of current biological approaches to species diversity - the 'evo-devo revolution' - which bring to light deep homologies between organisms. In dispensing with the classical notion of syntactic parameters, the authors argue that language variation, like biodiversity, is the result of experience and thus not a part of the language faculty in the narrow sense. They also examine the nature of this core language faculty, the primary categories with which it is concerned, the operations it performs, the syntactic constraints it poses on semantic interpretation and the role of phases in bridging the gap between brain and syntax. Written in language accessible to a wide audience, The Biolinguistic Enterprise will appeal to scholars and students of linguistics, cognitive science, biology, and natural language processing.
Linguistics and Evolutionary Theory
Title | Linguistics and Evolutionary Theory PDF eBook |
Author | Ernst Haeckel |
Publisher | John Benjamins Publishing |
Pages | 211 |
Release | 1983-01-01 |
Genre | Language Arts & Disciplines |
ISBN | 9027208778 |
Contains: The Darwinian Theory and the Science of language (1863) by August Schleicher, translated from the German by Alexander V. W. Bikkers. On the Significance of Language for the Natural History of Man (1865) by August Schleicher, translated from the German by J. Peter Maher. On the Origin of Language (1867) by Wilhelm H. I. Bleek, edited with a preface by Ernst Haeckel, translated from the German by Thomas Davidson.
Language in a Darwinian Perspective
Title | Language in a Darwinian Perspective PDF eBook |
Author | Bernard H. Bichakjian |
Publisher | Peter Lang Publishing |
Pages | 350 |
Release | 2002 |
Genre | Language Arts & Disciplines |
ISBN |
Though it is well-known that nothing makes sense in biology except in the light of evolution, in linguistics the received view is to reject the Darwinian approach. This book breaks the prevailing taboo and argues instead that linguistic features - speech sounds, grammatical distinctions and syntactic strategies - have followed an evolutionary course. Though variation exists and gratuitious changes can be found, an indepth study clearly suggests that on the whole linguistic features have developed under two sets of selections pressures: the pressure to reduce the neuromuscular cost, and the concomitant pressure to find ever-more functional alternatives. Moving on from language to writing, the author argues that the observed optimalization process also applies to the evolution of writing from hieroglyphs to alphabets. Both language and writing are indeed better understood in the light of evolution. Contents: language evolution - language families - language diversity - evolution of writing - theory of evolution - cyclical scenarios - linear models - linguistic theories.