Bücher von Derek Bickerton

Interdisciplinary perspectives on the evolutionary and biological roots of syntax, describing current research on syntax in fields ranging from linguistics to neurology.

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 problem have fallen short. 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, one that yielded novel innovations ranging from barbed arrowheads to the Apollo spacecraft.Written in Bickerton's lucid and irreverent style, this book is the first to thoroughly integrate the story of how language evolved with the story of how humans evolved. Sure to be controversial, it will make indispensable reading both for experts in the field and for every reader who has ever wondered how a species as remarkable as ours could have come into existence.'

Tells the story of what language is, how it works, and how it passes from generation to generation, even where historical accidents have made normal transmission almost impossible.

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. The volume also offers strong support for theories of Creole origins of 'Black English' in the United States.