LINGUIST List 14.3016

Wed Nov 5 2003

Books: Linguistic Theories: Botha

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

Directory

1. j.neden, Unravelling the Evolution of Language: Botha

Title: Unravelling the Evolution of Language
Series Title: Language and Communication Library
			
Publication Year: 2003
Publisher: Elsevier Ltd. 
 http://www.elsevier.com/locate/linguistics,
	 http://www.socscinet.com/linguistics
			
Book URL:
http://www.elseviersocialsciences.com/isbn/0080443184/index.html

Author: Rudolf Botha, Stellenbosch University, South Africa 

Hardback: ISBN: 0080443184, Pages: 244, Price: USD90 EUR90

Abstract:

What blocks the way to a better understanding of language evolution,
it is widely held, is above all a paucity of factual evidence. Not so,
argues Unravelling the Evolution of Language. This book finds the main
obstacle, instead, in a poverty of a specific kind of theory -
restrictive theory. It shows, too, that this poverty of restrictive
theory is one of the root causes of the paucity of factual evidence.

Unravelling... takes it that a theory of a thing T - for example,
language - is restrictive if it gives us a basis for distinguishing T
in a non-arbitrary way from all things that are in fact distinct from
it, including those that happen to be related to it. The book then
argues in detail that much of the recent work on language evolution
proceeds from loose assumptions, rather than restrictive theories,
about a number of crucial "things":

 *The entities, prelinguistic or linguistic, that are believed to have
 undergone evolution
 *The processes by which these entities are believed to have evolved
 *The ways in which these (pre)linguistic entities link up with
 entities that are believed to be correlates of them
 *The sources of data that are believed to yield indirect evidence
 about the evolution of language
 *The factors that add to or subtract from the scientific substance of
 accounts of language evolution.

In support of its main argument, Unravelling... puts forward detailed
analyses of various recent accounts of language evolution, including -
 * co-optationist accounts by Noam Chomsky, Stephen Jay Gould, Massimo
 Piattelli-Palmarini and Lyle Jenkins
 * preadaptationist accounts by Philip Lieberman, Wendy Wilkins, Jenny
 Wakefield, Andrew Carstairs-McCarthy, William Calvin and Derek
 Bickerton
 * adaptationist accounts by Steven Pinker, Paul Bloom and others.

This means that Unravelling... as it builds its main argument, also
offers an appraisal of some significant contributions to recent work
on language evolution.

Contents 

Part and chapter headings: 
Acknowledgements. 
Preamble. 
Linguistic Entities Involved in Evolution. 
Language and the Language Faculty. 
The Formal Grammatical System. 
Language in Multiple (Dis)guises. 
A Theory of Linguistic Entities. 
Processes of Language Evolution. 
Co-optation in Language Evolution. 
Preadaptation in Language Evolution. 
Natural Selection in Language Evolution. 
Theories of Evolutionary Processes. 
Evidence and Argumentation. 
Testability: a Litmus Test?
Indirect Evidence. 
Non-empirical Argumentation. 
Plausible Evolutionary Stories. 
Theories of the Substance of Science. 
Capstone. 
Notes. 
Bibliography. 
Index.

Lingfield(s): Linguistic Theories
		Anthropological Linguistics

Written In: English (Language Code: ENG)


 See this book announcement on our website: 
 http://linguistlist.org/get-book.html?BookID=8089.