Creating language : integrating evolution, acquisition, and processing / Morten H. Christiansen and Nick Chater.
| Author/creator |
Christiansen, Morten H., 1963- author. |
| Other author/creator | Chater, Nick author. |
| Format | Electronic, Tactile Material, Book, and Print |
| Publication Info | Cambridge, MA : The MIT Press, [2016] |
| Description | xiv, 330 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm |
| Subject(s) |
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| Contents | Theoretical and empirical foundations -- Language created across multiple timescales -- Generative approaches to language processing, acquisition, and evolution -- An integrated framework for language processing, acquisition, and evolution -- Language as shaped by the brain -- The logical problem of language evolution -- Evolution of universal grammar by biological adaptation -- Evolution of universal grammar by non-adaptationist means -- Language as shaped by the brain -- Constraints on language structure -- How constraints shape language over time -- Language acquisition meets language evolution -- C-induction and N-induction -- Implications for learning and adaptation -- The emergence of binding constraints -- Broader implications for language acquisition and development -- The now-or-never processing bottleneck -- The now-or-never bottleneck -- Chunk-and-pass language processing -- Acquisition is learning to process -- Language change is item-based -- Explaining key properties of language -- Implications for the nature of language -- Language acquisition through multiple-cue integration -- A pressure for arbitrary signs: a cultural evolution perspective -- How systematic is spoken language? -- The sound of syntax -- Multiple-cue integration by a domain-general sequence learner -- Multiple-cue integration in acquisition and processing -- The cultural evolution of multiple cues in language -- Further implications of multiple-cue integration -- Experience-based language processing -- Processing biases as a reflection of linguistic input -- Individual differences in chunk-and-pass processing -- Recursion as a usage-based skill -- Sequence learning as the basis for recursive structure -- A usage-based model of complex recursive structure -- From fragmentation to integration -- Integration or conflation? -- The cumulative emergence of linguistic order -- Return of the Lumpers: putting the language sciences back together. |
| Abstract | Language is a hallmark of the human species; the flexibility and unbounded expressivity of our linguistic abilities are unique in the biological world. In this book, Morten Christiansen and Nick Chater argue that to understand this astonishing phenomenon, we must consider how language is created: moment by moment, in the generation and understanding of individual utterances; year by year, as new language learners acquire language skills; and generation by generation, as languages change, split, and fuse through the processes of cultural evolution. Christiansen and Chater propose a revolutionary new framework for understanding the evolution, acquisition, and processing of language, offering an integrated theory of how language creation is intertwined across these multiple timescales. Christiansen and Chater argue that mainstream generative approaches to language do not provide compelling accounts of language evolution, acquisition, and processing. Their own account draws on important developments from across the language sciences, including statistical natural language processing, learnability theory, computational modeling, and psycholinguistic experiments with children and adults. Christiansen and Chater also consider some of the major implications of their theoretical approach for our understanding of how language works, offering alternative accounts of specific aspects of language, including the structure of the vocabulary, the importance of experience in language processing, and the nature of recursive linguistic structure. --Dust jacket. |
| Bibliography note | Includes bibliographical references (pages 248-307) and index. |
| LCCN | 2015038404 |
| ISBN | 9780262034319 (hardcover ; alk. paper) |
| ISBN | 026203431X (hardcover ; alk. paper) |
| ISBN | 9780262535113 (paperback) |
| ISBN | 0262535114 (paperback) |
| Standard identifier# | 40025949695 |
Available Items
| Library | Location | Call Number | Status | Item Actions | |
| Joyner | General Stacks | P37 .C547 2016 | ✔ Available | Place Hold |