A machine for language? Certainly, say the neurophysiologists, busy studying the language specializations of the human brain and trying to identify their evolutionary antecedents. Linguists such as Noam Chomsky talk about machinelike "modules" in the brain for syntax, arguing that language is more a[...]
How did humans acquire cognition more powerful than a hunting-gathering primate needed to survive? Combining research with forty years of writing about language evolution, the author resolves a crucial problem that both biology and cognitive science have ignored: how animal thinking escaped the pris[...]
How language evolved has been called 'the hardest problem in science'. In "ADAM'S TONGUE", Derek Bickerton - long a leading authority in this field - shows how and why previous attempts to solve that problem have fallen short. Taking cues from topics as diverse as the foraging strategies of ants, th[...]
"Bastard Tongues "is an exciting, firsthand story of scientific discovery in an area of research close to the heart of what it means to be human--what language is, how it works, and how it passes from generation to generation, even where historical accidents have made normal transmission almost impo[...]