Evolution and Revolution in Linguistic Theory

Download Evolution and Revolution in Linguistic Theory PDF Online Free

Author :
Release : 1996-01-01
Genre : Language Arts & Disciplines
Kind :
Book Rating : 440/5 ( reviews)

Evolution and Revolution in Linguistic Theory - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Evolution and Revolution in Linguistic Theory write by Héctor Campos. This book was released on 1996-01-01. Evolution and Revolution in Linguistic Theory available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. This volume presents essays by some of the leading figures in the vanguard of theoretical linguistics within the framework of universal grammmar. One of the first books to adopt the "minimalist" framework to syntactic analysis, it includes a central essay by Noam Chomsky on the minimalist program and covers a range of topics in syntax and morphology. Contributors: Luigi Burzio, Héctor Campos, Noam Chomsky, Joseph E. Emonds, Robert Freidin, James Harris, Ray Jackendoff, Paula Kempchinsky, Howard Lasnik, Claudia Parodi, Carlos Piera, A. Carlos Quicoli, Dominique Sportiche, Esther Torrego.

Why Only Us

Download Why Only Us PDF Online Free

Author :
Release : 2017-05-12
Genre : Language Arts & Disciplines
Kind :
Book Rating : 499/5 ( reviews)

Why Only Us - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Why Only Us write by Robert C. Berwick. This book was released on 2017-05-12. Why Only Us available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Berwick and Chomsky draw on recent developments in linguistic theory to offer an evolutionary account of language and humans' remarkable, species-specific ability to acquire it. “A loosely connected collection of four essays that will fascinate anyone interested in the extraordinary phenomenon of language.” —New York Review of Books We are born crying, but those cries signal the first stirring of language. Within a year or so, infants master the sound system of their language; a few years after that, they are engaging in conversations. This remarkable, species-specific ability to acquire any human language—“the language faculty”—raises important biological questions about language, including how it has evolved. This book by two distinguished scholars—a computer scientist and a linguist—addresses the enduring question of the evolution of language. Robert Berwick and Noam Chomsky explain that until recently the evolutionary question could not be properly posed, because we did not have a clear idea of how to define “language” and therefore what it was that had evolved. But since the Minimalist Program, developed by Chomsky and others, we know the key ingredients of language and can put together an account of the evolution of human language and what distinguishes us from all other animals. Berwick and Chomsky discuss the biolinguistic perspective on language, which views language as a particular object of the biological world; the computational efficiency of language as a system of thought and understanding; the tension between Darwin's idea of gradual change and our contemporary understanding about evolutionary change and language; and evidence from nonhuman animals, in particular vocal learning in songbirds.

Chomskyan (r)evolutions

Download Chomskyan (r)evolutions PDF Online Free

Author :
Release : 2010
Genre : Language Arts & Disciplines
Kind :
Book Rating : 698/5 ( reviews)

Chomskyan (r)evolutions - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Chomskyan (r)evolutions write by Douglas A. Kibbee. This book was released on 2010. Chomskyan (r)evolutions available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Chomsky's atavistic revolution (with a little help from his enemies) / John E. Joseph -- The equivocation of form and notation in generative grammar / Christopher Beedham -- Chomsky's paradigm : what it includes and what it excludes / Joanna Radwanska-Williams -- "Scientific revolutions" and other kinds of regime change / Stephen O. Murray -- Noam and Zellig / Bruce Nevin -- Chomsky 1951a and Chomsky 1951b / Peter T. Daniels -- Grammar and language in syntactic structures : transformational progress and structuralist "reflux" / Pierre Swiggers -- Chomsky's other revolution / R. Allen Harris -- Chomsky between revolutions / Malcolm D. Hyman -- What do we talk about, when we talk about "universal grammar" and how have we talked about it? / Margaret Thomas -- Migrating propositions and the evolution of generative grammar / Marcus Tomalin -- Universalism and human difference in Chomskyan linguistics : the first "superhominid" and the language faculty / Christopher Hutton -- The evolution of meaning and grammar : Chomskyan theory and the evidence from grammaticalization / T. Craig Christy -- Chomsky in search of a pedigree / Camiel Hamans & Pieter A.M. Seuren -- The "linguistics wars" : a tentative assessment by an outsider witness / Giorgio Graffi -- British empiricism and transformational grammar : a current debate / Jacqueline Léon -- Historiography's contribution to theoretical linguistics / Julie Tetel Andresen.

The Biolinguistic Enterprise

Download The Biolinguistic Enterprise PDF Online Free

Author :
Release : 2011-03-17
Genre : Language Arts & Disciplines
Kind :
Book Rating : 270/5 ( reviews)

The Biolinguistic Enterprise - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Biolinguistic Enterprise write by Anna Maria Di Sciullo. This book was released on 2011-03-17. The Biolinguistic Enterprise available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. 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.

The Origins of Grammar

Download The Origins of Grammar PDF Online Free

Author :
Release : 2011-09-22
Genre : Language Arts & Disciplines
Kind :
Book Rating : 930/5 ( reviews)

The Origins of Grammar - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Origins of Grammar write by James R. Hurford. This book was released on 2011-09-22. The Origins of Grammar available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. 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 brink to modern language. He now considers how that step might have been taken and the consequences it undoubtedly had. The capacity for language lets human beings formulate and express an unlimited range of propositions about real or fictitious worlds. It allows them to communicate these propositions, often overlaid with layers of nuance and irony, to other humans who can then interpret and respond to them. These processes take place at breakneck speed. Using a language means learning a vast number of arbitrary connections between forms and meanings and rules on how to manipulate them, both of which a normal human child can do in its first few years of life. James Hurford looks at how this miracle came about. The book is divided into three parts. In the first the author surveys the syntactic structures evident in the communicative behaviour of animals, such as birds and whales, and discusses how vocabularies of learned symbols could have evolved and the effects this had on human thought. In the second he considers how far the evolution of grammar depended on biological or cultural factors. In the third and final part he describes the probable route by which the human language faculty and languages evolved from simple beginnings to their present complex state.