Download or read book Language written by Daniel L. Everett and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2012-03-13 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A bold and provocative study that presents language not as an innate component of the brain—as most linguists do—but as an essential tool unique to each culture worldwide. For years, the prevailing opinion among academics has been that language is embedded in our genes, existing as an innate and instinctual part of us. But linguist Daniel Everett argues that, like other tools, language was invented by humans and can be reinvented or lost. He shows how the evolution of different language forms—that is, different grammar—reflects how language is influenced by human societies and experiences, and how it expresses their great variety. For example, the Amazonian Pirahã put words together in ways that violate our long-held under-standing of how language works, and Pirahã grammar expresses complex ideas very differently than English grammar does. Drawing on the Wari’ language of Brazil, Everett explains that speakers of all languages, in constructing their stories, omit things that all members of the culture understand. In addition, Everett discusses how some cultures can get by without words for numbers or counting, without verbs for “to say” or “to give,” illustrating how the very nature of what’s important in a language is culturally determined. Combining anthropology, primatology, computer science, philosophy, linguistics, psychology, and his own pioneering—and adventurous—research with the Amazonian Pirahã, and using insights from many different languages and cultures, Everett gives us an unprecedented elucidation of this society-defined nature of language. In doing so, he also gives us a new understanding of how we think and who we are.
Download or read book Heads in Grammatical Theory written by and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Heads in Grammatical Theory written by Greville G. Corbett and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1993-06-24 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A study of the idea of the 'head' or dominating element of a phrase.
Download or read book The Language Myth written by Vyvyan Evans and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-10-02 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on cutting-edge research, Evans presents an alternative to the received wisdom, showing how language and the mind really work.
Download or read book Aspects of the Theory of Syntax written by Noam Chomsky and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 1969-03-15 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chomsky proposes a reformulation of the theory of transformational generative grammar that takes recent developments in the descriptive analysis of particular languages into account. Beginning in the mid-fifties and emanating largely form MIT, an approach was developed to linguistic theory and to the study of the structure of particular languages that diverges in many respects from modern linguistics. Although this approach is connected to the traditional study of languages, it differs enough in its specific conclusions about the structure and in its specific conclusions about the structure of language to warrant a name, "generative grammar." Various deficiencies have been discovered in the first attempts to formulate a theory of transformational generative grammar and in the descriptive analysis of particular languages that motivated these formulations. At the same time, it has become apparent that these formulations can be extended and deepened.The major purpose of this book is to review these developments and to propose a reformulation of the theory of transformational generative grammar that takes them into account. The emphasis in this study is syntax; semantic and phonological aspects of the language structure are discussed only insofar as they bear on syntactic theory.
Download or read book Grammatical Theory in the United States from Bloomfield to Chomsky written by Peter Hugoe Matthews and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a history of modern linguistics which focuses on the spread and dominance of linguistic theory originating in North America. It concentrates on the theories and influence of Bloomfield and Chomsky, and offers systematic coverage of their enormous contributions to grammatical theory over their lifespan. As well as tracing the intellectual histories of these great figures, and of others in the field, Professor Matthews follows the development and continuity of three dominant grammatical ideas in linguistics. First, the idea that the study of formal relations can and should be separated from that of meaning. Second, that sentences are composed of linear configurations of morphemes. Third, that many aspects of grammar are defined generically. His biographical and theoretical survey will be invaluable to all linguists wishing to trace the origins of their discipline.
Download or read book Syntactic Structures written by Noam Chomsky and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2020-05-18 with total page 120 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: No detailed description available for "Syntactic Structures".
Download or read book Second Language Acquisition and Universal Grammar written by Lydia White and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2003-03-06 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Table of contents
Download or read book The Language Instinct Debate written by Geoffrey Sampson and published by Bloomsbury Academic. This book was released on 2018-03-01 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When it was first published in 1997, Geoffrey Sampson's Educating Eve was described as the definitive response to Steven Pinker's The Language Instinct and Noam Chomsky's nativism. In this revised and expanded new edition, Sampson revisits his original arguments in the light of fresh evidence that has emerged since the original publication. Since Chomsky revolutionized the study of language in the 1960s, it has increasingly come to be accepted that language and other knowledge structures are hard-wired in our genes. According to this view, human beings are born with a rich structure of cognition already in place. But people do not realize how thin the evidence for that idea is.The 'Language Instinct' Debate examines the various arguments for instinctive knowledge, and finds that each one rests on false premisses or embodies logical fallacies. The structures of language are shown to be purely cultural creations. With a new chapter entitled 'How People Really Speak' which uses corpus data to analyse how language is used in spontaneous English conversation, responses to critics, extensive revisions throughout, and a new preface by Paul Postal of New York University, this new edition will be an essential purchase for students, academics, and general readers interested in the debate about the 'language instinct'.
Download or read book Essays on Language Function and Language Type written by Joan L. Bybee and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 1997-01-01 with total page 485 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In their subject matter and in their theoretical orientation all the papers in this volume reflect the powerful influence of T. Givón. Most of them deal with questions of morphosyntactic typology, pragmatics, and grammaticalization theory. Many of them are directly based on extensive fieldwork on local languages of the Americas, Africa, Asia, and the Pacific. Others are based on statistical analyses of extensive written and spoken corpora of texts.
Download or read book A Performance Theory of Order and Constituency written by John A. Hawkins and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1994 with total page 520 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Major new work arguing that grammars are profoundly shaped by language processing.
Download or read book Basic Linguistic Theory Volume 2 written by R. M. W. Dixon and published by Oxford University Press on Demand. This book was released on 2010 with total page 508 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Basic Linguistic Theory R. M. W. Dixon provides a comprehensive guide to the nature of human languages and their description and analysis. The books are a one-stop text for undergraduate and graduate students, the triumphant outcome of a lifetime's immersion in every aspect of language, and a lasting monument to innovative scholarship.
Download or read book Language in Time and Space written by Brigitte L.M. Bauer and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2011-03-01 with total page 473 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The honoree of this Festschrift has for many years now marked modern trends in diachronic and synchronic linguistics by his own publications and by stimulating those of numerous others. This collection of articles presents data-oriented studies that integrate modern and traditional approaches in the field, thus reflecting the honoree's contribution to contemporary linguistics. The articles relate to comparative data from (early) Indo-European languages and a variety of other languages and discuss the theoretical implications of phenomena such as linguistic universals, reconstruction, and language classification.
Download or read book Basic Linguistic Theory Volume 1 written by R. M. W. Dixon and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 398 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Basic Linguistic Theory R. M. W. Dixon provides a comprehensive guide to the nature of human languages and their description and analysis. The books are a one-stop text for undergraduate and graduate students, the triumphant outcome of a lifetime's immersion in every aspect of language, and a lasting monument to innovative scholarship.
Download or read book Semantic and Lexical Universals written by Cliff Goddard and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 1994-05-04 with total page 522 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This set of papers represents a unique collection; it is the first attempt ever to empirically test a hypothetical set of semantic and lexical universals across a number of genetically and typologically diverse languages. In fact the word 'collection' is not fully appropriate in this case, since the papers report research undertaken specifically for the present volume, and shaped by the same guidelines. They constitute parallel and strictly comparable answers to the same set of questions, coordinated effort with a common aim, and a common methodology.The goal of identifying the universal human concepts found in all languages, is of fundamental importance, both from a theoretical and a practical point of view, since these concepts provide the basis of the “psychic unity of mankind”, underlying the clearly visible diversity of human cultures. They also allow us to better understand that diversity itself, because they provide a common measure, without which no precise and meaningful comparisons are possible at all. A set of truly universal (or even near-universal) concepts can provide us with an invaluable tool for interpreting, and explaining all the culture-specific meanings encoded in the language-and-culture systems of the world. It can also provide us with a tool for explaining meanings across cultures — in education, business, trade, international relations, and so on. The book contains 13 chapters on individual languages including Japanese (by Masayuki Onishi), Chinese (by Hilary Chappel), Thai (by Anthony Diller), Ewe (Africa, by Felix Ameka), Miskitu languages of South America (by Kenneth Hall), Australian Aboriginal languages Aranda, Yankunytjatjara and Kayardild (by Jean Harkins & David Wilkins, Cliff Goddard, and Nicholas Evans), the Austronesian languages Samoan, Longgu, Acehnese and Mangap-Mbula (by Ulrike Mosel, Deborah Hill, Mark Durie and Robert Bugenhagen), the Papuan language Kalam (by Andrew Pawley), and, last but not least French (by Bert Peters).In addition to the chapters on individual languages the book includes three theoretical chapters; “Semantic theory and semantic universals” (by Goddard), “Introducing lexical primitives” (by Goddard and Wierzbicka), and “Semantic primitives across languages: a critical review” (by Wierzbicka).
Download or read book Studies in African Linguistic Typology written by F. K. Erhard Voeltz and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2006-03-22 with total page 444 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The twenty-one papers that make up this volume reflect the broad perspective of African linguistic typology studies today. Where previous volumes would present language material from a very restricted area and perspective, the present contributions reflect the global interest and orientation of current African linguistic studies. The studies are nearly all implicational in nature. Based upon a detailed survey of a particular linguistic phenomenon in a given language or language area conclusions are drawn about the general nature about this phenomenon in the languages of Africa and beyond. They represent as such a first step that may ultimately lead to a more thorough understanding of African linguistic structures. This approach is well justified. Taking the other road, attempting to pick out linguistic details from often fairly superficially documented languages runs the risk that the data and its implications for the structure investigated might be misunderstood. Consequentially only very few studies of this nature giving the very broad perspective, the overview of a particular structure type covering the whole African continent are represented here.
Download or read book Linguistic Semantics written by John Lyons and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1995-11-30 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This successor to Language, Meaning and Context provides an invaluable introduction to linguistic semantics.
