MARC Record from harvard_bibliographic_metadata

LEADER: 03076nam a22003858i 4500
001 013771113-1
005 20131121124549.0
008 130501s2014 mau b 001 0 eng
010 $a 2013011146
020 $a9780674724907
020 $a0674724909
035 0 $aocn840460763
035 0 $aocn862039470
035 0 $aocn864900360
040 $aDLC$beng$cDLC$erda
042 $apcc
050 00 $aP106$b.B468 2014
082 00 $a401/.9$223
100 1 $aBickerton, Derek.
245 10 $aMore than nature needs :$blanguage, mind, and evolution /$cDerek Bickerton.
264 1 $aCambridge, Massachusetts :$bHarvard University Press,$c2014.
300 $a324 pages ;$c25 cm.
336 $atext$2rdacontent
337 $aunmediated$2rdamedia
338 $avolume$2rdacarrier
504 $aIncludes bibliographical references and index.
505 0 $aWallace's problem -- Generative Theory -- The "specialness" of Humans -- From animal Communication to Protolanguage -- Universal Grammar -- Variation and Change -- Language "Acquisition" -- Creolization -- Homo Sapiens Loquens.
520 $a"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 Wallace, co-founder with Darwin of evolutionary theory, saw humans as 'divine exceptions' to natural selection. Darwin thought use of language might have shaped our sophisticated brains, but his hypothesis remained an intriguing guess--until now. Combining state-of-the-art research with forty years of writing and thinking about language evolution, Derek Bickerton convincingly resolves a crucial problem that both biology and the cognitive sciences have hitherto ignored or evaded. What evolved first was neither language nor intelligence--merely normal animal communication plus displacement. That was enough to break restrictions on both thought and communication that bound all other animals. The brain self-organized to store and automatically process its new input, words. But words, which are inextricably linked to the concepts they represent, had to be accessible to consciousness. The inevitable consequence was a cognitive engine able to voluntarily merge both thoughts and words into meaningful combinations. Only in a third phase could language emerge, as humans began to tinker with a medium that, when used for communication, was adequate for speakers but suboptimal for hearers. Starting from humankind's remotest past, More than Nature Needs transcends nativist thesis and empiricist antithesis by presenting a revolutionary synthesis--one that instead of merely repeating 'nature and nurture' clichés shows specifically and in a principled manner how and why the synthesis came about."--book jacket.
650 0 $aLanguage and languages.
650 0 $aHuman evolution$xPsychological aspects.
650 0 $aLanguage acquisition$xPsychological aspects.
650 0 $aCognitive grammar.
650 0 $aPsycholinguistics.
988 $a20130904
906 $0DLC