Adam's tongue : how humans made language, how language made humans / Derek Bickerton.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bickerton, Derek

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Language and languages.

Human evolution.

Psycholinguistics.

Physical Description:

286 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : Hill and Wang, 2009.

Summary:

How language evolved has been called "the hardest problem in science." Linguist Derek Bickerton shows how and why previous attempts to solve that problem have fallen short. This book is the first that thoroughly integrates the story of how language evolved with the story of how humans evolved. Taking cues from topics as diverse as the foraging strategies of ants, the distribution of large prehistoric herbivores, and the construction of ecological niches, Bickerton produces a dazzling new alternative to the conventional wisdom. Language is unique to humans, but it isn't the only thing that sets us apart from other species--our cognitive powers are qualitatively different. So could there be two separate discontinuities between humans and the rest of nature? No, says Bickerton; he shows how the mere possession of symbolic units--words--automatically opened a new and different cognitive universe.--From publisher description.

Contents:

The size of the problem

Thinking like engineers

Singing apes?

Chatting apes?

Niches aren't everything (they-re the only thing)

Our ancestors in their niches

Go to the ant, thou sluggard

The big bang

The challenge from Chomsky

Making up our minds

An acorn grows to a sapling

The sapling becomes an oak.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [259]-271) and index.

ISBN:

9780809022816

0809022818

OCLC:

243544631