How language evolved has been called “the hardest problem in science.” In Adam’s Tongue, Derek Bickerton—long a leading authority in this field—shows how and why previous attempts to solve that proble
Bastard Tongues is an exciting, firsthand story of scientific discovery in an area of research close to the heart of what it means to be human—what language is, how it works, and how it passes
Language and Species presents the most detailed and well-documented scenario to date of the origins of language. Drawing on "living linguistic fossils" such as "ape talk," the "two-word" stage of smal
The human mind is an unlikely evolutionary adaptation. How did humans acquire cognitive capacities far more powerful than anything a hunting-and-gathering primate needed to survive? Alfred Russel Wall
In this volume the author describes and systematically accounts for language variation in a Creole-speaking community and assesses the implications the study has on generally accepted notions of the nature of language. Based on an extensive study of Guyana, South America, the volume analyses the bewildering diversity found in the syntax and underlying semantics of tense and aspect of the language of that country and shows that data which at first sight appear merely chaotic in fact represent different developmental stages of the language existing side by side in the contemporary community. The volume also offers strong support for theories of Creole origins of 'Black English' in the United States. It should be of interest not only to those linguists involved in Creole and pidgin studies but also to anyone concerned with general linguistic theory.
"What this book proposes to do," writes Derek Bickerton, "is to stand the conventional wisdom of the behavioral sciences on its head: instead of the human species growing clever enough to invent langu
Syntax is arguably the most human-specific aspect of language. Despite the proto-linguistic capacities of some animals, syntax appears to be the last major evolutionary transition in humans that has
A machine for language? Certainly, say the neurophysiologists, busy studying the language specializations of the human brain and trying to identify their evolutionary antecedents. Linguists such as No
A machine for language? Certainly, say the neurophysiologists, busy studying thelanguage specializations of the human brain and trying to identify their evolutionary antecedents.Linguists such as Noam
This lavishly illustrated monograph will be the definitive publication to date on artist Ashley Bickerton. From the coolly abstract sculptures which evolved amid his meteoric success in the 1980s New
