Language Evolution

Morten H. Christiansen, Simon Kirby

OUP Oxford, Jul 24, 2003 - Language Arts & Disciplines - 414 pages

What is it that makes us human? This is one of the most challenging and important questions we face. Our species' defining characteristic is language - we appear to be unique in the natural world in having such an incredibly open-ended system for putting thoughts into words. If we are to truly understand ourselves as a species we must understand the origins of this strange and unique ability. To do so, we need to answer some of the most intriguing questions in contemporary scientific research: Where did language come from? How did it evolve? Why are we unique in possessing it? This book, for the first time, brings together the leading thinkers who are trying to unlock the puzzle of language evolution. Here we see the latest ideas and theories from fields as diverse as anthropology, archaeology, artificial life, biology, cognitive science, linguistics, neuroscience, and psychology. In a series of seventeen well-written and accessible chapters we get an unrivalled view of the state of the art in this exciting area. Current controversies are revealed and new perspectives uncovered, in a clear and readable guide to the latest theories. This collection marks a major step forward in our quest to understand the origins and evolution of human language. In doing so it sheds new light on the process of evolution, the workings of the brain, the structure of language, and - most importantly - what it means to be human. Language Evolution is essential reading for researchers and students working in the areas covered, and has been used as a textbook for courses in the field. It will also attract the general reader who wants to know more about this fascinating subject.

Contents

• V: 1
• VI: 16
• VII: 38
• VIII: 58
• IX: 94
• X: 111
• XI: 140
• XII: 158
• XIII: 182
• XIV: 201
• XV: 219
• XVI: 235
• XVII: 255
• XVIII: 272
• XIX: 295
• XX: 317
• XXI: 338
• XXII: 385

Popular passages

Page 60 - We know very little about what happens when 1010 neurons are crammed into something the size of a basketball, with further conditions imposed by the specific manner in which this system developed over time. It would be a serious error to suppose that all properties, or the interesting properties of the structures that have evolved, can be "explained" in terms of natural selection.‎

Page 25 - It makes a difference whether a far-off region is reached by taking the trail that is in front of the large tree or the trail that the large tree is in front of. It makes a difference whether that region has animals that you can eat or animals that can eat you.‎

Page 104 - ... not have any kind of abstract category of "determiner" that included both of these lexical items. A number of systematic studies of children learning languages other than English have found very similar results. For example, Pizzuto and Caselli...‎

Page 209 - Though highly specialized, the language faculty is not tied to specific sensory modalities, contrary to what was assumed not long ago. Thus, the sign language of the deaf is structurally much like spoken language, and the course of acquisition is very similar.‎

About the author

Morten H. Christiansen is Assistant Professor of Psychology at Cornell University. He is co-editor of Connectionist Psycholinguistics published by Ablex in 2001. Simon Kirby is a British Academy Research Fellow at the University of Edinburgh: his book, Function, Selection, and Innateness was published by OUP in 1999.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Language Evolution; Studies in the Evolution of Language
• Editors: Morten H. Christiansen, Simon Kirby
• Publisher: OUP Oxford, 2003
• ISBN: 0191581666, 9780191581663
• Length: 414 pages
• Subjects: Language Arts & Disciplines / Linguistics / General; Language Arts & Disciplines / Linguistics / Phonetics & Phonology; Psychology / Cognitive Psychology & Cognition; Science / Life Sciences / Biology; Social Science / Anthropology / General