This book proposes a new theory of the origins of human language ability and presents an original account of the early evolution of language. It explains why humans are the only language-using animals, challenges the assumption that language is a consequence of intelligence, and offers a new perspective on human uniqueness. Brilliantly executed, this book draws on evidence from archaeology, linguistics, cognitive science and evolutionary biology.
This book proposes a new theory of the origins of human language ability and presents an original account of the early evolution of language. It expla...
This book proposes a new theory of the origins of human language ability and presents an original account of the early evolution of language. It explains why humans are the only language-using animals, challenges the assumption that language is a consequence of intelligence, and offers a new perspective on human uniqueness. Brilliantly executed, this book draws on evidence from archaeology, linguistics, cognitive science and evolutionary biology.
This book proposes a new theory of the origins of human language ability and presents an original account of the early evolution of language. It expla...
Current Morphology provides a thorough and wide-ranging introduction to approaches to morphology within linguistic theory over the last twenty years. This comprehensive survey concentrates not only on the generative linguistic mainstream, discussing the lexicalist morphology initiated by Chomsky and the syntactically orientated approaches that have developed in the 1980s, but on approaches that are less fashionable or relatively unknown to English-speaking linguists. It highlights neglected European theoretical developments, focusing on German-speaking as well as English-speaking countries....
Current Morphology provides a thorough and wide-ranging introduction to approaches to morphology within linguistic theory over the last twenty years. ...
Examining the evolution of the grammatical structure of words in the contexts of human evolution and the origins of language, this text challenges the conventional views of the relationship between syntax and morphology, the adaptationist view of language evolution, and the notion that language reflects 'laws of form'.
Examining the evolution of the grammatical structure of words in the contexts of human evolution and the origins of language, this text challenges the...
This book considers the evolution of the grammatical structure of words in the more general contexts of human evolution and the origins of language. The consensus in many fields is that language is well designed for its purpose, and became so either through natural selection or by virtue of non-biological constraints on how language must be structured. Andrew Carstairs-McCarthy argues that in certain crucial respects language is not optimally designed. This can be seen, he suggests, in the existence of not one but two kinds of grammatical organization - syntax and morphology - and in the...
This book considers the evolution of the grammatical structure of words in the more general contexts of human evolution and the origins of language. T...
First published in 1987, this book broke new ground in research on inflectional morphology. Drawing on evidence from a wide variety of languages, it shows that this is not just a phenomenon left over from obsolete phonological processes but a subject deserving of respect in its own right. The book proposes constraints in three areas: (1) the organization of inflection class systems; (2) inflectional homonymy, or syncretism; (3) the direction of allomorphic conditioning.
Carstairs-McCarthy s notion of paradigm economy revolutionized the study of inflection class systems but in its purest...
First published in 1987, this book broke new ground in research on inflectional morphology. Drawing on evidence from a wide variety of languages, i...
This book aims to provide a thorough and wide-ranging introduction to approaches to morphology in linguistic theory over the last twenty years. This comprehensive survey concentrates not only on the generative linguistic mainstream, but on approaches that are less fashionable or relatively unknown to English-speaking linguists, and highlights recent European, particularly German-speaking research.
This book aims to provide a thorough and wide-ranging introduction to approaches to morphology in linguistic theory over the last twenty years. This c...
