The Atoms Of Language: The Mind's Hidden Rules Of GrammarWhether all human languages are fundamentally the same or different has been a subject of debate for ages. This problem has deep philosophical implications: If languages are all the same, it implies a fundamental commonality-and thus the mutual intelligibility-of human thought.We are now on the verge of answering this question. Using a twenty-year-old theory proposed by the world's greatest living linguist, Noam Chomsky, researchers have found that the similarities among languages are more profound than the differences. Languages whose grammars seem completely incompatible may in fact be structurally almost identical, except for a difference in one simple rule. The discovery of these rules and how they may vary promises to yield a linguistic equivalent of the Periodic Table of the Elements: a single framework by which we can understand the fundamental structure of all human language. This is a landmark breakthrough, both within linguistics, which will thereby become a full-fledged science for the first time, and in our understanding of the human mind. |
Contents
The Discovery of Atoms | 19 |
Samples Versus Recipes | 51 |
Baking a Polysynthetic Language | 85 |
Copyright | |
7 other sections not shown
Common terms and phrases
adjectives adverbs atoms auxiliary phrase Baker Chapter chemistry Chichewa Chomsky Chris Code Talkers combine complex compounds cultural differences among languages direct object dislocated elements embedded clause English and Japanese English sentence English speakers ergative languages example expressed French and English grammatical guages head directionality parameter head-final languages Hixkaryana human language I-language interact Italian ject John kind language types learning lexical linguistic diversity lish logical look main verb marker meaning Mendeleyev's Mohawk Navajo noun incorporation noun phrase object agreement optional parame parameter hierarchy parametric theory periodic table Pinker polysynthesis parameter polysynthetic languages possible predict prefix prepositional phrase properties Quechua rameters ranuhwe's recipe reflexive pronoun serial verb constructions similar Spanish structure subject noun phrase subject-verb-object suffix tences tense auxiliary things tion topic Tzotzil University variation verb attraction parameter verb phrase verb-object constraint Warao Welsh whereas word order