Author: Guy Deutscher
Publisher: Metropolitan Books
ISBN: 1466837837
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 372
Book Description
Blending the spirit of Eats, Shoots & Leaves with the science of The Language Instinct, an original inquiry into the development of that most essential-and mysterious-of human creations: Language "Language is mankind's greatest invention-except, of course, that it was never invented." So begins linguist Guy Deutscher's enthralling investigation into the genesis and evolution of language. If we started off with rudimentary utterances on the level of "man throw spear," how did we end up with sophisticated grammars, enormous vocabularies, and intricately nuanced degrees of meaning? Drawing on recent groundbreaking discoveries in modern linguistics, Deutscher exposes the elusive forces of creation at work in human communication, giving us fresh insight into how language emerges, evolves, and decays. He traces the evolution of linguistic complexity from an early "Me Tarzan" stage to such elaborate single-word constructions as the Turkish sehirlilestiremediklerimizdensiniz ("you are one of those whom we couldn't turn into a town dweller"). Arguing that destruction and creation in language are intimately entwined, Deutscher shows how these processes are continuously in operation, generating new words, new structures, and new meanings. As entertaining as it is erudite, The Unfolding of Language moves nimbly from ancient Babylonian to American idiom, from the central role of metaphor to the staggering triumph of design that is the Semitic verb, to tell the dramatic story and explain the genius behind a uniquely human faculty.
The Unfolding of Language
Author: Guy Deutscher
Publisher: Metropolitan Books
ISBN: 1466837837
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 372
Book Description
Blending the spirit of Eats, Shoots & Leaves with the science of The Language Instinct, an original inquiry into the development of that most essential-and mysterious-of human creations: Language "Language is mankind's greatest invention-except, of course, that it was never invented." So begins linguist Guy Deutscher's enthralling investigation into the genesis and evolution of language. If we started off with rudimentary utterances on the level of "man throw spear," how did we end up with sophisticated grammars, enormous vocabularies, and intricately nuanced degrees of meaning? Drawing on recent groundbreaking discoveries in modern linguistics, Deutscher exposes the elusive forces of creation at work in human communication, giving us fresh insight into how language emerges, evolves, and decays. He traces the evolution of linguistic complexity from an early "Me Tarzan" stage to such elaborate single-word constructions as the Turkish sehirlilestiremediklerimizdensiniz ("you are one of those whom we couldn't turn into a town dweller"). Arguing that destruction and creation in language are intimately entwined, Deutscher shows how these processes are continuously in operation, generating new words, new structures, and new meanings. As entertaining as it is erudite, The Unfolding of Language moves nimbly from ancient Babylonian to American idiom, from the central role of metaphor to the staggering triumph of design that is the Semitic verb, to tell the dramatic story and explain the genius behind a uniquely human faculty.
Publisher: Metropolitan Books
ISBN: 1466837837
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 372
Book Description
Blending the spirit of Eats, Shoots & Leaves with the science of The Language Instinct, an original inquiry into the development of that most essential-and mysterious-of human creations: Language "Language is mankind's greatest invention-except, of course, that it was never invented." So begins linguist Guy Deutscher's enthralling investigation into the genesis and evolution of language. If we started off with rudimentary utterances on the level of "man throw spear," how did we end up with sophisticated grammars, enormous vocabularies, and intricately nuanced degrees of meaning? Drawing on recent groundbreaking discoveries in modern linguistics, Deutscher exposes the elusive forces of creation at work in human communication, giving us fresh insight into how language emerges, evolves, and decays. He traces the evolution of linguistic complexity from an early "Me Tarzan" stage to such elaborate single-word constructions as the Turkish sehirlilestiremediklerimizdensiniz ("you are one of those whom we couldn't turn into a town dweller"). Arguing that destruction and creation in language are intimately entwined, Deutscher shows how these processes are continuously in operation, generating new words, new structures, and new meanings. As entertaining as it is erudite, The Unfolding of Language moves nimbly from ancient Babylonian to American idiom, from the central role of metaphor to the staggering triumph of design that is the Semitic verb, to tell the dramatic story and explain the genius behind a uniquely human faculty.
The Oxford Handbook of African Languages
Author: Rainer Vossen
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191007382
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 1104
Book Description
This book provides a comprehensive overview of current research in African languages, drawing on insights from anthropological linguistics, typology, historical and comparative linguistics, and sociolinguistics. Africa is believed to host at least one third of the world's languages, usually classified into four phyla - Niger-Congo, Afro-Asiatic, Nilo-Saharan, and Khoisan - which are then subdivided into further families and subgroupings. This volume explores all aspects of research in the field, beginning with chapters that cover the major domains of grammar and comparative approaches. Later parts provide overviews of the phyla and subfamilies, alongside grammatical sketches of eighteen representative African languages of diverse genetic affiliation. The volume additionally explores multiple other topics relating to African languages and linguistics, with a particular focus on extralinguistic issues: language, cognition, and culture, including colour terminology and conversation analysis; language and society, including language contact and endangerment; language and history; and language and orature. This wide-ranging handbook will be a valuable reference for scholars and students in all areas of African linguistics and anthropology, and for anyone interested in descriptive, documentary, typological, and comparative linguistics.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191007382
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 1104
Book Description
This book provides a comprehensive overview of current research in African languages, drawing on insights from anthropological linguistics, typology, historical and comparative linguistics, and sociolinguistics. Africa is believed to host at least one third of the world's languages, usually classified into four phyla - Niger-Congo, Afro-Asiatic, Nilo-Saharan, and Khoisan - which are then subdivided into further families and subgroupings. This volume explores all aspects of research in the field, beginning with chapters that cover the major domains of grammar and comparative approaches. Later parts provide overviews of the phyla and subfamilies, alongside grammatical sketches of eighteen representative African languages of diverse genetic affiliation. The volume additionally explores multiple other topics relating to African languages and linguistics, with a particular focus on extralinguistic issues: language, cognition, and culture, including colour terminology and conversation analysis; language and society, including language contact and endangerment; language and history; and language and orature. This wide-ranging handbook will be a valuable reference for scholars and students in all areas of African linguistics and anthropology, and for anyone interested in descriptive, documentary, typological, and comparative linguistics.
The Genesis of the Symbolic
Author: Arno Schubbach
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110623633
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 412
Book Description
Ernst Cassirer’s philosophy of culture has been much discussed in recent years. However, it remains unclear how it evolved from his older theory of knowledge. This study deals with this question on the basis of Cassirer’s ‘disposition’ of a ‘philosophy of the symbolic’, reconstructed here for the first time. This text shows that the ‘symbolic’ refers to culture as a whole and to its inherent diversity. Therefore, ‘the symbolic’ includes the relationship between the general transcendental conditions of culture and its empirical specificities in language and languages, art and the arts, myth and myths, science and disciplines. Cassirer does not comprehend this empirical and specific reality of symbolization depending on pre-existing transcendental conditions. Instead, he proceeds from the empirical diversity of the symbolisations and reflects on their simultaneously general and specific conditions. Thus, Cassirer embarks on a path that he finds paved in Kant’s "Critique of Judgement": He consequently defines ‘the symbolic’ as the horizon for a reflective approach based on empirical findings – and not as the foundation of a systematic derivation of the diversity of culture in the style of the idealistic tradition.
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110623633
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 412
Book Description
Ernst Cassirer’s philosophy of culture has been much discussed in recent years. However, it remains unclear how it evolved from his older theory of knowledge. This study deals with this question on the basis of Cassirer’s ‘disposition’ of a ‘philosophy of the symbolic’, reconstructed here for the first time. This text shows that the ‘symbolic’ refers to culture as a whole and to its inherent diversity. Therefore, ‘the symbolic’ includes the relationship between the general transcendental conditions of culture and its empirical specificities in language and languages, art and the arts, myth and myths, science and disciplines. Cassirer does not comprehend this empirical and specific reality of symbolization depending on pre-existing transcendental conditions. Instead, he proceeds from the empirical diversity of the symbolisations and reflects on their simultaneously general and specific conditions. Thus, Cassirer embarks on a path that he finds paved in Kant’s "Critique of Judgement": He consequently defines ‘the symbolic’ as the horizon for a reflective approach based on empirical findings – and not as the foundation of a systematic derivation of the diversity of culture in the style of the idealistic tradition.
The Oscillatory Nature of Language
Author: Elliot Murphy
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108836313
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 337
Book Description
Develops a theory of how language is processed in the brain and provides a state-of-the-art review of current neuroscientific debates.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108836313
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 337
Book Description
Develops a theory of how language is processed in the brain and provides a state-of-the-art review of current neuroscientific debates.
Evolution Of Language, The - Proceedings Of The 8th International Conference (Evolang8)
Author: Andrew D M Smith
Publisher: World Scientific
ISBN: 9814465682
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 553
Book Description
This volume comprises refereed papers and abstracts of the 8th International Conference on the Evolution of Language (EVOLANG8), held in Utrecht on 14-17 April 2010. As the leading international conference in the field, the biennial EVOLANG meeting is characterized by an invigorating, multidisciplinary approach to the origins and evolution of human language, and brings together researchers from many subject areas, including anthropology, archaeology, biology, cognitive science, computer science, genetics, linguistics, neuroscience, palaeontology, primatology and psychology.The latest theoretical, experimental and modelling research on language evolution is presented in this collection, including contributions from many leading scientists in the field.
Publisher: World Scientific
ISBN: 9814465682
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 553
Book Description
This volume comprises refereed papers and abstracts of the 8th International Conference on the Evolution of Language (EVOLANG8), held in Utrecht on 14-17 April 2010. As the leading international conference in the field, the biennial EVOLANG meeting is characterized by an invigorating, multidisciplinary approach to the origins and evolution of human language, and brings together researchers from many subject areas, including anthropology, archaeology, biology, cognitive science, computer science, genetics, linguistics, neuroscience, palaeontology, primatology and psychology.The latest theoretical, experimental and modelling research on language evolution is presented in this collection, including contributions from many leading scientists in the field.
Thinking about Law
Author: Oren Ben-Dor
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1847313825
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 430
Book Description
What calls for thinking about law? What does it mean to think about? What is aboutness? Could it be that law, in its essence, has not yet been thought about? In exploring these questions, this book closely reads Heidegger's thought, especially his later poetical writings. Heidegger's transformation of the very notion and process of thinking has destabilising implications for the formation of any theory of law, however critical this theory may be. The transformation of thinking also affects the notions of ethics and morality, and the manner in which law relates to them. Interpretations of Heidegger's unique understanding of notions such as 'essence', 'thinking', 'language', 'truth' and 'nearness' come together to indicate the otherness of the essence of law from what is referred to as the 'legal'. If the essence of law has not yet been thought about, what generates deafness to the call for such thinking, thereby entrenching a refuge for legalism? The ambit of the legal is traced to Levinasian ethics, especially to his notion of otherness, despite such a notion being apparently highly critical of the totality of the legal. In entrenching the legal, it is argued that Levinas's notion of otherness does not reflect thinking that is otherwise than ontology but rather radicalises and maintains a derivative ontology. A call for thinking about law is then connected to Heideggerian ontologically based otherness upon which ethical reflection, that the essence of law protects, is grounded.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1847313825
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 430
Book Description
What calls for thinking about law? What does it mean to think about? What is aboutness? Could it be that law, in its essence, has not yet been thought about? In exploring these questions, this book closely reads Heidegger's thought, especially his later poetical writings. Heidegger's transformation of the very notion and process of thinking has destabilising implications for the formation of any theory of law, however critical this theory may be. The transformation of thinking also affects the notions of ethics and morality, and the manner in which law relates to them. Interpretations of Heidegger's unique understanding of notions such as 'essence', 'thinking', 'language', 'truth' and 'nearness' come together to indicate the otherness of the essence of law from what is referred to as the 'legal'. If the essence of law has not yet been thought about, what generates deafness to the call for such thinking, thereby entrenching a refuge for legalism? The ambit of the legal is traced to Levinasian ethics, especially to his notion of otherness, despite such a notion being apparently highly critical of the totality of the legal. In entrenching the legal, it is argued that Levinas's notion of otherness does not reflect thinking that is otherwise than ontology but rather radicalises and maintains a derivative ontology. A call for thinking about law is then connected to Heideggerian ontologically based otherness upon which ethical reflection, that the essence of law protects, is grounded.
The Origins of Language
Author: Joanna Dornbierer-Stuart
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3031549384
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 200
Book Description
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3031549384
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 200
Book Description
The Gestural Origin of Language
Author: David F. Armstrong
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198036914
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 162
Book Description
In The Gestural Origin of Language, Sherman Wilcox and David Armstrong use evidence from and about sign languages to explore the origins of language as we know it today. According to their model, it is sign, not spoken languages, that is the original mode of human communication. The authors demonstrate that modern language is derived from practical actions and gestures that were increasingly recognized as having the potential to represent, and hence to communicate. In other words, the fundamental ability that allows us to use language is our ability to use pictures or icons, rather than linguistic symbols. Evidence from the human fossil record supports the authors' claim by showing that we were anatomically able to produce gestures and signs before we were able to speak fluently. Although speech evolved later as a secondary linguistic communication device that eventually replaced sign language as the primary mode of communication, speech has never entirely replaced signs and gestures. As the first comprehensive attempt to trace the origin of grammar to gesture, this volume will be an invaluable resource for students and professionals in psychology, linguistics, and philosophy.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198036914
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 162
Book Description
In The Gestural Origin of Language, Sherman Wilcox and David Armstrong use evidence from and about sign languages to explore the origins of language as we know it today. According to their model, it is sign, not spoken languages, that is the original mode of human communication. The authors demonstrate that modern language is derived from practical actions and gestures that were increasingly recognized as having the potential to represent, and hence to communicate. In other words, the fundamental ability that allows us to use language is our ability to use pictures or icons, rather than linguistic symbols. Evidence from the human fossil record supports the authors' claim by showing that we were anatomically able to produce gestures and signs before we were able to speak fluently. Although speech evolved later as a secondary linguistic communication device that eventually replaced sign language as the primary mode of communication, speech has never entirely replaced signs and gestures. As the first comprehensive attempt to trace the origin of grammar to gesture, this volume will be an invaluable resource for students and professionals in psychology, linguistics, and philosophy.
The Historicity of Experience
Author: Krzysztof Ziarek
Publisher: Northwestern University Press
ISBN: 081011836X
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 363
Book Description
In this groundbreaking volume, Krzysztof Ziarek rethinks modern experience by bringing together philosophical critiques of modernity and avant-garde poetry. Ziarek explores, through selective readings of avant-garde poetry, the key aspects of the radical critique of experience: technology, everydayness, event, and sexual difference. To that extent, The Historicity of Experience is less a book about the avant-garde than a critique of experience through the avant-garde. Ziarek reads the avant-garde in dialogue with the work of some of the major critics of modernity (Martin Heidegger, Walter Benjamin, Jean-François Lyotard, and Luce Irigaray) to show how avant-garde experiments bear critically on the issue of modern experience and its technological organization. The four poets Ziarek considers—Gertrude Stein, Velimir Khlebnikov, Miron Biaoszewski, and Susan Howe—demonstrate the broad reach of and variety of forms taken by the avant-garde revision of experience and aesthetics. Moreover, this quartet illustrates how the main operative concepts and strategies of the avant-garde underpinned the practices of canonical writers. A profound philosophical meditation on language, modernity, and the everyday, The Historicity of Experience offers a fundamental reconceptualization of the avant-garde in relation to experience.
Publisher: Northwestern University Press
ISBN: 081011836X
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 363
Book Description
In this groundbreaking volume, Krzysztof Ziarek rethinks modern experience by bringing together philosophical critiques of modernity and avant-garde poetry. Ziarek explores, through selective readings of avant-garde poetry, the key aspects of the radical critique of experience: technology, everydayness, event, and sexual difference. To that extent, The Historicity of Experience is less a book about the avant-garde than a critique of experience through the avant-garde. Ziarek reads the avant-garde in dialogue with the work of some of the major critics of modernity (Martin Heidegger, Walter Benjamin, Jean-François Lyotard, and Luce Irigaray) to show how avant-garde experiments bear critically on the issue of modern experience and its technological organization. The four poets Ziarek considers—Gertrude Stein, Velimir Khlebnikov, Miron Biaoszewski, and Susan Howe—demonstrate the broad reach of and variety of forms taken by the avant-garde revision of experience and aesthetics. Moreover, this quartet illustrates how the main operative concepts and strategies of the avant-garde underpinned the practices of canonical writers. A profound philosophical meditation on language, modernity, and the everyday, The Historicity of Experience offers a fundamental reconceptualization of the avant-garde in relation to experience.
Heidegger, Ethics and the Practice of Ontology
Author: David Webb
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1441155392
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 244
Book Description
Heidegger, Ethics and the Practice of Ontology presents an important new examination of ethics and ontology in Heidegger. There remains a basic conviction throughout Heidegger's thought that the event by which Being is given or disclosed is somehow 'prior' to our relation to the many beings we meet in our everyday lives. This priority makes it possible to talk about Being 'as such'. It also sanctions the relegation of ethics to a secondary position with respect to ontology. However, Heidegger's acknowledgement that ontology itself must remain intimately bound to concrete existence problematises the priority accorded to the ontological dimension. David Webb takes this bond as a key point of reference and goes on to develop critical perspectives that open up from within Heidegger's own thought, particularly in relation to Heidegger's debt to Aristotelian physics and ethics. Webb examines the theme of continuity and its role in the constitution of the 'as such' in Heidegger's ontology and argues that to address ontology is to engage in an ethical practice and vice versa.
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1441155392
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 244
Book Description
Heidegger, Ethics and the Practice of Ontology presents an important new examination of ethics and ontology in Heidegger. There remains a basic conviction throughout Heidegger's thought that the event by which Being is given or disclosed is somehow 'prior' to our relation to the many beings we meet in our everyday lives. This priority makes it possible to talk about Being 'as such'. It also sanctions the relegation of ethics to a secondary position with respect to ontology. However, Heidegger's acknowledgement that ontology itself must remain intimately bound to concrete existence problematises the priority accorded to the ontological dimension. David Webb takes this bond as a key point of reference and goes on to develop critical perspectives that open up from within Heidegger's own thought, particularly in relation to Heidegger's debt to Aristotelian physics and ethics. Webb examines the theme of continuity and its role in the constitution of the 'as such' in Heidegger's ontology and argues that to address ontology is to engage in an ethical practice and vice versa.