Language Origins: Perspectives on Evolution

✍ Scribed by Maggie Tallerman

• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Year: 2005
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 447
• Series: Studies in the Evolution of Language
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This book addresses central questions in the evolution of language: where it came from; how and why it evolved; how it came to be culturally transmitted; and how languages diversified. It does so from the perspective of the lateste work in linguistics, neuroscience, psychology, and computer science, and deploys the latest methods and theories toe probe into the origins and subsequent development of thee only species that has languages.

✦ Table of Contents

Contents......Page 6
Preface and acknowledgements......Page 9
List of Figures......Page 11
List of Tables......Page 13
List of Abbreviations......Page 14
Notes on the contributors......Page 16
1. Introduction: Language origins and evolutionary processes......Page 22
Part I: Evolution of speech and speech sounds: How did spoken language emerge?......Page 32
Introduction to Part I: How did links between perception and production emerge for spoken language?......Page 33
2. The Mirror System Hypothesis: how did protolanguage evolve?......Page 42
3. How did language go discrete?......Page 69
4. From holistic to discrete speech sounds: the blind snowflake-maker hypothesis......Page 89
5. Infant-directed speech and evolution of language......Page 121
Part II: Evolution of grammar: How did syntax and morphology emerge?......Page 144
Introduction to Part II: Protolanguage and the development of complexity......Page 145
6. Initial syntax and modern syntax: did the clause evolve from the syllable?......Page 154
7. The potential role of production in the evolution of syntax......Page 174
8. The evolutionary origin of morphology......Page 187
9. The evolution of grammatical structures and ‘functional need’ explanations......Page 206
10. Deception and mate selection: some implications for relevance and the evolution of language......Page 229
Part III: Analogous and homologous traits: What can we learn from other species?......Page 252
Introduction to Part III: The broadening scope of animal communication research......Page 253
11. An avian perspective on language evolution: implications of simultaneous development of vocal and physical object combinations by a Grey parrot (Psittacus erithacus)......Page 260
12. Linguistic prerequisites in the primate lineage......Page 283
Part IV: Learnability and diversity: How did languages emerge and diverge?......Page 304
Introduction to Part IV: Computer modelling widens the focus of language study......Page 305
13. Cultural selection for learnability: three principles underlying the view that language adapts to be learnable......Page 312
14. Co-evolution of the language faculty and language(s) with decorrelated encodings......Page 331
15. Acquisition and evolution of quasi-regular languages: two puzzles for the price of one......Page 355
16. Evolution of language diversity: why fitness counts......Page 378
17. Mutual exclusivity: communicative success despite conceptual divergence......Page 393
References......Page 410
C......Page 443
H......Page 444
N......Page 445
U......Page 446
W......Page 447