Origins of Complex Language - An Inquiry Into Evolutionary Beginnings of Sentences, Syllables,

Zusatztext This book offers a superb review of recent debates on the origins of language, supported by an exhaustive and up-to-date bibliography. This in itself makes it a worthwhile buy. The scholarship is meticulous, displaying close familiarity with most central controversies in the field Klappentext This book proposes a new theory of the origins of human language ability and presents an original account of the early evolution of language. It explains why humans are the only language-using animals, challenges the assumption that language is a consequence of intelligence, and offers a new perspective on human uniqueness. Brilliantly executed, this book draws on evidence from archaeology, linguistics, cognitive science and evolutionary biology. Zusammenfassung Proposing a theory of the origins of human language ability and presenting an account of the early evolution of language, this text explains why humans are the only language-using animals, challenges the assumption that language is due to intelligence, and offers a perspective on human uniqueness. Inhaltsverzeichnis 1: Introduction 2: The peculiarities of language 3: Truth and reference 4: Attempts to solve the problems 5: A different solution 6: Apes, anthropology, and the brain 7: Just how unique are we? Appendix Further reading References Index

Product details

• Authors: Andrew Carstairs-Mccarthy, Andrew (Professor and Head of Carstairs-Mccarthy, Andrew (Professor and Head of Department of Linguistics Carstairs-McCarthy, Carstairs-McCarthy Andrew
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 01.03.1999
• EAN: 9780198238225
• ISBN: 978-0-19-823822-5
• No. of pages: 272
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative linguistics; Philosophy of Language, Evolution, PHILOSOPHY / Language, SCIENCE / Life Sciences / Evolution, Psycholinguistics, Historical & comparative linguistics, Psycholinguistics and cognitive linguistics, Historical and comparative linguistics, Evolution / Evolutionary biology