| Description |
xviii, 383 pages : illustrations, portrait ; 22 cm |
| Contents |
Ch. 1. Language as a biological adaptation -- Ch. 2. The bounds of generativity and the adaptive basis of variation -- Ch. 3. The demise of competence -- Ch. 4. Human language as an evolutionary product -- Ch. 5. An evolutionary account of language processing rates -- Ch. 6. The diachronic foundations of language universals -- Ch. 7. The neuro-cognitive interpretation of 'context': Anticipating other minds -- Ch. 8. The grammar of the narrator's perspective in narrative fiction -- Ch. 9. The society of intimates -- Ch. 10. On the ontology of academic negativity -- Epilogue: Joseph Greenberg as a theorist |
| Summary |
Is human language an evolutionary adaptation? Is linguistics a natural science? These questions have bedeviled philosophers, philologists and linguists from Plato through Chomsky. Prof. Givón suggests that the answers fall naturally within an integrated study of living organisms. In this new work, Givón points out that language operates between aspects of both complex biological design and adaptive behavior. As in biology, the whole is an adaptive compromise to competing demands. Variation is the indispensable tool of learning, change and adaptation. The contrast between innateness and in |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliography (pages [355]-375) and index |
| Notes |
Print version record |
| Subject |
Biolinguistics.
|
|
Linguistics.
|
| LC no. |
2002074705 |
| ISBN |
158811225X U.S. hardback alkaline paper |
|
1588112268 U.S. paperback alkaline paper |
|
9027225907 Eur. hardback |
|
9027225915 Eur. paperback |
|
