I Speak, Therefore I Am - Seventeen Thoughts About Language

In I Speak, Therefore I Am, the Italian linguist and neuroscientist Andrea Moro composes an album of his favorite quotations from the history of philosophy, beginning with the Book of Genesis and the power of naming and concluding with Noam Chomsky's metaphor that language is a snowflake. Moro's seventeen linguistic snapshots and his commentary on them constitute an album that displays the humanness of language: our need to name, to contain, and to translate the world in order to express and understand ourselves. This book is sure to delight anyone who enjoys the ineffable paradox that is human language.

About the author

Andrea Moro is professor of general linguistics at the Scuola Universitaria Superiore in Pavia, Italy. His work has been published in Nature Neuroscience, Linguistic Inquiry, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and his books include The Raising of Predicates, Dynamic Antisymmetry, The Equilibrium of Human Syntax, The Boundaries of Babel, and Impossible Languages.

Summary

We understand our thoughts and ourselves through language, but what is the nature of language?

Report

"Combining wide learning, sharp insight and deft style, these enlightening and intriguing vignettes carry us through the ages to reach considerable understanding of the distinctive linguistic capacity that sets humans apart from the rest of the natural world." - Noam Chomsky, author of What Kind of Creatures Are We?

Product details

• Authors: Andrea Moro, Andrea C. Moro, Moro Andrea C.
• Assisted by: Ian Roberts (Translation)
• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 31.07.2016
• EAN: 9780231177412
• ISBN: 978-0-231-17741-2
• No. of pages: 96
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative linguistics; Philosophy of Language, Linguistics, PHILOSOPHY / Language, LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / General, Historical & comparative linguistics, Historical and comparative linguistics