LINGUIST List 14.140

Wed Jan 15 2003

Books: Lang Acquisition/Anthro Ling: Givon, Malle eds.

Editor for this issue: Marisa Ferrara <marisalinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. paul, The Evolution of Language out of Pre-language

			
Title: The Evolution of Language out of Pre-language
Series Title: Typological Studies in Language 53
			
Publication Year: 2002
Publisher: John Benjamins 
 http://www.benjamins.com/, http://www.benjamins.nl		 
			
Book URL: http://www.benjamins.nl/cgi-bin/t_bookview.cgi?bookid=TSL_53
 
Editor: T. Giv�n, University of Oregon 
Editor: Bertram F. Malle, University of Oregon 

Hardback: ISBN: 1588112373, Pages: x, 394 pp., Price: USD 90.00
Hardback: ISBN: 9027229597, Pages: x, 394 pp., Price: EUR 90.00
Paperback: ISBN: 1588112381, Pages: x, 394 pp., Price: USD 43.95
Paperback: ISBN: 9027229600, Pages: x, 394 pp., Price: EUR 44.00
			
Abstract:

The contributors to this volume are linguists, psychologists,
neuroscientists, primatologists, and anthropologists who share the
assumption that language, just as mind and brain, are products of
biological evolution. The rise of human language is not viewed as a
serendipitous mutation that gave birth to a unique linguistic organ,
but as a gradual, adaptive extension of pre-existing mental capacities
and brain structures. The contributors carefully study brain
mechanisms, diachronic change, language acquisition, and the parallels
between cognitive and linguistic structures to weave a web of
hypotheses and suggestive empirical findings on the origins of
language and the connections of language to other human
capacities. The chapters discuss brain pathways that support
linguistic processing; origins of specific linguistic features in
temporal and hierarchical structures of the mind; the possible
co-evolution of language and the reasoning about mental states; and
the aspects of language learning that may serve as models of
evolutionary change.

Table of Contents

The visual information-processing system as an evolutionary precursor
of human language
 T. Giv�n 3 
Embodied meaning 
 Don M. Tucker 51 
Missing links, issues and hypotheses in the evolutionary origin of
language
 Charles N. Li 83 
Sequentiality as the basis of constituent structure 
 Joan L. Bybee 107 
The internal structure of the syllable 
 Barbara L. Davis and Peter F. Macneilage 133 
On the origins of intersyllabic complexity 
 Peter F. Macneilage and Barbara L. Davis 153 
On the pre-linguistic origins of language processing rates 
 Marjorie Barker and T. Giv�n 169 
The clausal structure of linguistic and pre-linguistic behavior 
 Gertraud Fenk-Oczlon and August Fenk 213 
The gradual emergence of language 
 Brian MacWhinney 231 
The relation between language and theory of mind in development and
evolution
 Bertram F. Malle 263 
The rise of intentional understanding in human development 
 Dare A. Baldwin 283 
The emergence of grammar in early child language 
 Michael Tomasello 307 
Why does exposure to language matter? 
 Jill P. Morford 327 
Getting a handle on language creation 
 Susan Goldin-Meadow 341 
Language evolution, acquisition, diachrony 
 Dan I. Slobin 373

Lingfield(s): Anthropological Linguistics
		Language Acquisition
		Psycholinguistics
			 
Written In: English (Language Code: ENG)