20% off all books with the code: BOOKS
  • check 10+ million books
  • check New arrivals every day
  • check Trusted by 1M+ customers
  • check Great prices & discounts
  • check Shipping across Europe

Why Only Us: Language and Evolution - Robert C. Berwick,Noam Chomsky

English
2017-05-12
€29.94 €37.42

-20% with code BOOKS

In stock at our supplier

Shipping in 10-16 days

30-day return policy

Berwick and Chomsky draw on recent developments in linguistic theory to offer an evolutionary account of language and humans' remarkable, species-specific ability to acquire it."A loosely connected collection of four essays that will fascinate anyone interested in the extraordinary phenomenon of language.” —New York Review of BooksWe are born crying, but those cries signal the first stirring of language. Wi ... Full description

You May Also Like

Description

Berwick and Chomsky draw on recent developments in linguistic theory to offer an evolutionary account of language and humans' remarkable, species-specific ability to acquire it.

"A loosely connected collection of four essays that will fascinate anyone interested in the extraordinary phenomenon of language.” —New York Review of Books

We are born crying, but those cries signal the first stirring of language. Within a year or so, infants master the sound system of their language; a few years after that, they are engaging in conversations. This remarkable, species-specific ability to acquire any human language—"the language faculty”—raises important biological questions about language, including how it has evolved. This book by two distinguished scholars—a computer scientist and a linguist—addresses the enduring question of the evolution of language.

Robert Berwick and Noam Chomsky explain that until recently the evolutionary question could not be properly posed, because we did not have a clear idea of how to define "language” and therefore what it was that had evolved. But since the Minimalist Program, developed by Chomsky and others, we know the key ingredients of language and can put together an account of the evolution of human language and what distinguishes us from all other animals.

Berwick and Chomsky discuss the biolinguistic perspective on language, which views language as a particular object of the biological world; the computational efficiency of language as a system of thought and understanding; the tension between Darwin's idea of gradual change and our contemporary understanding about evolutionary change and language; and evidence from nonhuman animals, in particular vocal learning in songbirds.

More Information

Author Robert C. Berwick, Noam Chomsky
Publisher The MIT Press
Release year 2017
Cover type Softcover
EAN 9780262533492
Write Your Own Review
You're reviewing: Why Only Us: Language and Evolution
Your Rating:

Goodreads Reviews

€29.94 €37.42