Origin and Evolution of Languages : Approaches, Models, Paradigms

by Laks, Bernard; Cleuziou, Serge (CON); Demoule, Jean-Paul (CON); Encreve, Pierre (CON)

• ISBN13: 9781845532048
• ISBN10: 184553204X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-08-30
• Publisher: David Brown Book Co

Summary

Origin and Evolution of Languages has a strong interdisciplinary flavour designed to highlight the true complexity of the debates in the field. Many of the models and theories proposed can only be validated by bringing together arguments developed across several disciplines. The book emphasises this dimension by including contributions from disciplines that have traditionally been wary of extending beyond their borders: linguistics (different branches thereof), philosophy, history and prehistory, archaeology, anthropology, genetics and computer-modelling. The contributions in this volume are intended to encompass both the agreements and disjunctures characteristic of the field and present approaches that clearly differ from, and even contradict, one another.

Table of Contents

Origins and evolution of languages: retrospectives and perspectives	p. 1
Genetic evolution and the evolution of languages	p. 29
Languages, genes, and prehistory, with special reference to Europe	p. 40
Poor design features in language as clues to its prehistory	p. 63
What can we learn about the earliest human language by comparing languages known today?	p. 79
Conceptualization, communication, and the origins of grammar	p. 112
The origin of language as a product of the evolution of modern cognition	p. 133
Comparativism: from genealogy to genetics	p. 157
Simulating the expansion of farming and the differentiation of European languages	p. 192
Colin Renfrew's hypothesis on the Near-Eastern origin of the original Indo-European people: an evaluation	p. 215
New perspectives on the origin of languages	p. 241
Linguistic history and computational cladistics	p. 257
What do creoles and pidgins tell us about the evolution of language?	p. 272
Does history begin before Sumer?	p. 298
Index of authors	p. 331
Index of languages	p. 338
Index of subjects	p. 341
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