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The Origins of Grammar : Language in the Light of Evolution II.
This is the second of the two closely linked but self-contained volumes that comprise James Hurford's acclaimed exploration of the biological evolution of language. In the first book he looked at the evolutionary origins of meaning, ending as our distant ancestors were about to step over the br...
| Clasificación: | Libro Electrónico |
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| Autor principal: | |
| Formato: | Electrónico eBook |
| Idioma: | Inglés |
| Publicado: |
Oxford :
OUP Oxford,
2011.
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| Colección: | Studies in the evolution of language.
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| Temas: | |
| Acceso en línea: | Texto completo |
Tabla de Contenidos:
- Cover; Contents; Preface; Acknowledgements; Part One: Pre-Grammar: Introduction to Part I: Twin Evolutionary Platforms--Animal Song and Human Symbols; 1. Animal Syntax? Implications for Language as Behaviour; 1.1. Wild animals have no semantically compositional syntax; 1.2. Non-compositional syntax in animals: its possible relevance; 1.3. Formal Language Theory for the birds, and matters arising; 1.4. Summary, and the way forward; 2. First Shared Lexicon; 2.1. Continuity from primate calls; 2.2. Sound symbolism, synaesthesia, and arbitrariness; 2.3. Or monogenesis?
- 2.4. Social convergence on conventionalized common symbols2.5. The objective pull: public use affects private concepts; 2.6. Public labels as tools helping thought; Part Two: What Evolved: Introduction to Part II: Some Linguistics--How to Study Syntax, and What Evolved; 3. Syntax in the Light of Evolution; 3.1. Preamble: the syntax can of worms; 3.2. Language in its discourse context; 3.3. Speech evolved first; 3.4. Message packaging--sentence-like units; 3.5. Competence-plus; 3.6. Individual differences in competence-plus; 3.7. Numerical constraints on competence-plus.
- 4. What Evolved: Language Learning Capacity4.1. Massive storage; 4.2. Hierarchical structure; 4.3. Word-internal structure; 4.4. Syntactic categories; 4.5. Grammatical relations; 4.6. Long-range dependencies; 4.7. Constructions, complex items with variables; 4.8. Island constraints; 4.9. Wrapping up; 5. What Evolved: Languages; 5.1. Widespread features of languages; 5.2. Growth rings--layering; 5.3. Linguists on complexity; 5.4. Pirahã; 5.5. Riau Indonesian; 5.6. Creoles and pidgins; 5.7. Basic Variety; 5.8. New sign languages; 5.9. Social correlates of complexity.
- Part Three: What Happened: Introduction to Part III: What Happened--The Evolution of Syntax6. The Pre-existing Platform; 6.1. Setting: in Africa; 6.2. General issues about evolutionary 'platforms'; 6.3. Pre-human semantics and pragmatics; 6.4. Massive storage; 6.5. Hierarchical structure; 6.6. Fast processing of auditory input; 6.7. Syntactic categories and knowledge representation; 6.8. Constructions and long-range dependencies; 7. Gene-Language Coevolution; 7.1. Fast biological adaptation to culture; 7.2. Phenotype changes--big brains; 7.3. Genotype changes--selection or drift?
- 7.4. The unique symbolic niche7.5. Learning and innateness; 8. One Word, Two Words ... ; 8.1. Syntax evolved gradually; 8.2. One-word utterances express propositions; 8.3. Shades of protolanguage; 8.4. Packaging in sentence-like units; 8.5. Synthetic and analytic routes to syntax; 9. Grammaticalization; 9.1. Setting: in and out of Africa; 9.2. Introducing grammaticalization; 9.3. Topics give rise to nouns; 9.4. Topics give rise to Subjects; 9.5. Emergence of more specific word classes; 9.6. Morphologization; 9.7. Cognitive and social requirements for grammaticalization; Sendoff; Bibliography.