Format:
1 Online-Ressource (xi, 426 pages)
,
digital, PDF file(s)
ISBN:
9780511606441
Content:
Language has no counterpart in the animal world. Unique to Homo sapiens, it appears inseparable from human nature. But how, when and why did it emerge? The contributors to this volume - linguists, anthropologists, cognitive scientists, and others - adopt a modern Darwinian perspective which offers a bold synthesis of the human and natural sciences. As a feature of human social intelligence, language evolution is driven by biologically anomalous levels of social cooperation. Phonetic competence correspondingly reflects social pressures for vocal imitation, learning, and other forms of social transmission. Distinctively human social and cultural strategies gave rise to the complex syntactical structure of speech. This book, presenting language as a remarkable social adaptation, testifies to the growing influence of evolutionary thinking in contemporary linguistics. It will be welcomed by all those interested in human evolution, evolutionary psychology, linguistic anthropology, and general linguistics
Content:
Language : a Darwinian adaptation? / Chris Knight, Michael Studdert-Kennedy and James R. Hurford -- Introduction : the evolution of cooperative communication / Chris Knight -- Comprehension, production and conventionalisation in the origins of language / Robbins Burling -- Cooperation, competition and the evolution of prelinguistic communication / Jason Noble -- Language and hominid politics / Jean-Louis Dessalles -- Secret language use at female initiation : bounding gossiping communities / Camilla Power -- Play as precursor of phonology and syntax / Chris Knight --Introduction : the emergence of phonetic structure / Michael Studdert-Kennedy -- The role of mimesis in infant language development : evidence for phylogeny? / Marilyn M. Vihman and Rory A. Depaolis -- Evolution of speech : the relation between ontogeny and phylogeny / Peter F. Macneilage and Barbara L. Davis -- Evolutionary implications of the particulate principle : imitation and the dissociation of phonetic form from semantic function / Michael Studdert-Kennedy -- Emergence of sound systems through self-organisation / Bart de Boer -- Modelling language-physiology coevolution / Daniel Livingstone and Colin Fyfe -- Introduction : the emergence of syntax / James R. Hurford -- The spandrels of the linguistic genotype / David Lightfoot -- The distinction between sentences and noun phrases : an impediment to language evolution? / Andrew Carstairs-McCarthy -- How protolanguage became language / Derek Bickerton -- Holistic utterances in protolanguage : the link from primates to humans / Alison Wray -- Syntax without natural selection : how compositionality emerges from vocabulary in a population of learners / Simon Kirby -- Social transmission favours linguistic generalisation / James R. Hurford -- Words, memes and language evolution / Robert P. Worden -- On the reconstruction of 'proto-world' word order / Frederick J. Newmeyer -- The history, rate and pattern of world linguistic evolution / Mark Pagel
Note:
Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015)
Additional Edition:
ISBN 9780521781572
Additional Edition:
ISBN 9780521786966
Additional Edition:
Print version ISBN 9780521781572
Language:
English
Subjects:
Comparative Studies. Non-European Languages/Literatures
Keywords:
Sprachursprung
DOI:
10.1017/CBO9780511606441
URL:
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