Why we talk : the evolutionary origins of language /

Why we talk : the evolutionary origins of language /

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Bibliographic Details
Author / Creator:Dessalles, Jean-Louis.
Uniform title:Aux origines du langage. English
Imprint:Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2007.
Description:xi, 384 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.
Language:English
Series:Studies in the evolution of language ; 7
Subject:
Language and languages -- Origin.
Animal communication.
Human evolution.
Animal communication.
Human evolution.
Language and languages -- Origin.
Format: Print Book
URL for this record:http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/6250789
Hidden Bibliographic Details
ISBN:0199276234 (alk. paper)
9780199276233 (hbk.)
Notes:French edition, Aux origines du langage, first published by HermeĢ€s Science Publications, Paris, 2000.
Includes bibliographical references (p. [367]-375) and index.
Translated from the French.
Table of Contents:
  • Foreword
  • Part I. The place of language in human evolutionary history
  • 1. Animal and human communication
  • 1.1. The biological status of language
  • 1.2. Animal communication
  • 1.3. From signals to behaviour
  • 1.4. Language as code
  • 1.5. Communication in human primates
  • 1.6. Use of language by humans
  • 1.7. The originality of language
  • 2. Culture, languages, and language
  • 2.1. Why are there many languages?
  • 2.2. The myth of the mother language
  • 2.3. Language and the palaeolithic revolution
  • 2.4. The equal complexity of languages
  • 3. The biological roots of language
  • 3.1. The organs of language
  • 3.2. Neuronal circuitry dedicated to language
  • 3.3. Language learning in animals
  • 3.4. Does animal communication entail syntax?
  • 3.5. Language learning and universals
  • 3.6. Linguistic abilities in neonates
  • 3.7. The deaf children of Nicaragua
  • 3.8. Language is a compulsory activity
  • 3.9. The faculty of language
  • 4. Misapprehensions about the origins of language
  • 4.1. That language was a necessary outcome of evolution
  • 4.2. That evolution towards language was slow and gradual
  • 4.3. That language was an outcome of intelligence
  • 4.4. That in the beginning was the word
  • 4.5. That language is a vestige of past evolution
  • 5. Language as an evolutionary curiosity
  • 5.1. Evolution's directionless advance
  • 5.2. Nature appears to jump
  • 5.3. The role of macromutation in the emergence of language
  • 5.4. Could language be the outcome of a quite different ability?
  • 5.5. Dr Pangloss's explanation of language
  • 6. The local optimality of language
  • 6.1. Between chance and necessity
  • 6.2. The slow and the fast in evolutionary change
  • 6.3. Macroevolution and microevolution in the emergence of language
  • 6.4. What's the point of communicating?
  • Part II. The functional anatomy of speech
  • 7. Putting sounds together
  • 7.1. The articulatory gestures of language
  • 7.2. Was language gestural before it became oral?
  • 7.3. The atoms of language: gestures or phonemes?
  • 7.4. Phonological structuring of languages
  • 7.5. Mental structures underlying the assemblies of sounds
  • 7.6. The nature of the rules of language
  • 7.7. The biological function of phonological ability
  • 8. Protolanguage
  • 8.1. Communicating just with words
  • 8.2. A language that is not learned
  • 8.3. Protosemantics
  • 8.4. Prelanguage, a language without sentences
  • 8.5. The lexicon of protolanguage
  • 8.6. Protoconversations
  • 9. The mechanics of syntax
  • 9.1. The phenomenon of syntax
  • 9.2. The importance of relations between words
  • 9.3. Some facts about syntax
  • 10. Syntax and meaning
  • 10.1. From protolanguage to language
  • 10.2. Semantic recursion and syntactic recursion
  • 10.3. The principle of semantic linking
  • 10.4. The autonomy of syntactic mechanisms
  • 10.5. Another form of syntax
  • 10.6. The origin of syntax
  • 11. The structure of meanings
  • 11.1. Concepts, images, and definitions
  • 11.2. Thematic segmentation
  • 11.3. Double meanings
  • 12. The emergence of meaning
  • 12.1. The dissociation of the two forms of meaning
  • 12.2. A functional role for thematic segmentation
  • 12.3. The emergence of human meaning
  • Part III. The ethology of language
  • 13. Conversation behaviour
  • 13.1. An apparently unimportant behaviour
  • 13.2. Some attempts to explain speech events
  • 14. Language as information
  • 14.1. The constraint of relevance in conversation
  • 14.2. Relevance in the informative mode
  • 14.3. Creatures responsive to information
  • 14.4. The biological grounding of the informative mode
  • 14.5. Instinctive sharing of information
  • 15. The birth of argumentation
  • 15.1. Relevance in the argumentative mode
  • 15.2. The idea of cognitive conflict
  • 15.3. The recursive nature of argumentation
  • 15.4. The proximal function of language
  • 15.5. The origin of conversational modes
  • 16. Language as an evolutionary paradox
  • 16.1. The theory of social bonding
  • 16.2. The altruistic character of language
  • 16.3. Language and cooperation
  • 16.4. Language and cheating
  • 16.5. The cost of communication
  • 16.6. Three stages in the evolution of language
  • 17. The political origins of language
  • 17.1. How speakers benefit by being relevant
  • 17.2. Prestige theory
  • 17.3. The political role of language in hominids
  • 17.4. Language as showing off
  • 17.5. Homo loquens or Homo politicus
  • 17.6. The other functions of language
  • 18. Epilogue
  • 18.1. A genesis in three stages
  • 18.2. A new view of language
  • 18.3. Future perspectives
  • References
  • Index

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