The sounds of language can be divided into consonants, vowels, and
tones--the use of pitch to convey meaning. Seventy percent of the
world's languages use pitch in this way. Assuming little or no prior
knowledge of the topic, this textbook provides a clearly organized
introduction to tone and tonal phonology. Comprehensive in scope, it
examines the main types of tonal systems found in Africa, the
Americas, and Asia, using examples from the widest- possible range of
tone languages.
Contents:
1. Introduction; 2. Contrastive tone; 3. Tonal features; 4. The
autosegmental nature of tone, and its analysis in Optimality Theory;
5. Tone in morphology and in syntax; 6. African languages; 7. Asian
and Pacific languages; 8. The Americas; 9. Tone, stress, accent and
intonation; 10. Perception and acquisition of tone.
Linguistic Evolution through Language Acquisition
Editor
Ted Briscoe, University of Cambridge
This groundbreaking study of how children acquire language and the
effects on language change over the generations draws on a wide range
of examples. The book covers specific syntactic universals and the
nature of syntactic change. It reviews the language-learning
mechanisms required to acquire an existing linguistic system
(accurately and to impose further structure on an emerging system) and
the evolution of language(s) in relation to this learning mechanism.
Contributors:
Ted Briscoe, Michael Oliphant, Luc Steels, Robert Worden, John Batali,
Simon Kirby, Partha Niyogi, William J. Turkel, James R. Hurford
1. Introduction Ted Briscoe; 2. Learned systems of arbitrary
reference: the foundation of human linguistic uniqueness Michael
Oliphant; 3. Bootstrapping grounded word semantics Luc Steels;
4. Linguistic structure and the evolution of words Robert Worden;
5. The negotiation and acquisition of recursive grammars as a result
of competition among exemplars John Batali; 6. Learning, bottlenecks
and the evolution of recursive syntax Simon Kirby; 7. Theories of
cultural evolution and their application to language change Partha
Niyogi; 8. The learning guided evolution of natural language William
J. Turkel; 9. Grammatical acquisition and linguistic selection Ted
Briscoe; 10. Expression/induction models of language evolution:
dimensions and issues James R. Hurford.