Another book worth following up, for the 2 or 3 people here this month!
Phil
Title: The Evolution of Language out of Pre-language
Series Title: Typological Studies in Language 53
Publication Year: 2002
Publisher: John Benjamins
http://www.benjamins.com/, http://www.benjamins.nl
Book URL: http://www.benjamins.nl/cgi-bin/t_bookview.cgi?bookid=TSL_53
Editor: T. Givón, University of Oregon
Editor: Bertram F. Malle, University of Oregon
Hardback: ISBN: 1588112373, Pages: x, 394 pp., Price: USD 90.00
Hardback: ISBN: 9027229597, Pages: x, 394 pp., Price: EUR 90.00
Paperback: ISBN: 1588112381, Pages: x, 394 pp., Price: USD 43.95
Paperback: ISBN: 9027229600, Pages: x, 394 pp., Price: EUR 44.00
Abstract:
The contributors to this volume are linguists, psychologists,
neuroscientists, primatologists, and anthropologists who share the
assumption that language, just as mind and brain, are products of
biological evolution. The rise of human language is not viewed as a
serendipitous mutation that gave birth to a unique linguistic organ,
but as a gradual, adaptive extension of pre-existing mental capacities
and brain structures. The contributors carefully study brain
mechanisms, diachronic change, language acquisition, and the parallels
between cognitive and linguistic structures to weave a web of
hypotheses and suggestive empirical findings on the origins of
language and the connections of language to other human
capacities. The chapters discuss brain pathways that support
linguistic processing; origins of specific linguistic features in
temporal and hierarchical structures of the mind; the possible
co-evolution of language and the reasoning about mental states; and
the aspects of language learning that may serve as models of
evolutionary change.
Table of Contents
The visual information-processing system as an evolutionary precursor
of human language
T. Givón 3
Embodied meaning
Don M. Tucker 51
Missing links, issues and hypotheses in the evolutionary origin of
language
Charles N. Li 83
Sequentiality as the basis of constituent structure
Joan L. Bybee 107
The internal structure of the syllable
Barbara L. Davis and Peter F. Macneilage 133
On the origins of intersyllabic complexity
Peter F. Macneilage and Barbara L. Davis 153
On the pre-linguistic origins of language processing rates
Marjorie Barker and T. Givón 169
The clausal structure of linguistic and pre-linguistic behavior
Gertraud Fenk-Oczlon and August Fenk 213
The gradual emergence of language
Brian MacWhinney 231
The relation between language and theory of mind in development and
evolution
Bertram F. Malle 263
The rise of intentional understanding in human development
Dare A. Baldwin 283
The emergence of grammar in early child language
Michael Tomasello 307
Why does exposure to language matter?
Jill P. Morford 327
Getting a handle on language creation
Susan Goldin-Meadow 341
Language evolution, acquisition, diachrony
Dan I. Slobin 373
Lingfield(s): Anthropological Linguistics
Language Acquisition
Psycholinguistics
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