The Atoms of Language: The Mind's Hidden Rules of Grammar - Couverture rigide

Baker, Mark C.

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 019860632X ISBN 13 : 9780198606321

Editeur : Oxford University Press, 2002

Synopsis

Human languages are strikingly different from each other, and also strikingly the same. One of the most indecipherable codes used in World War II was Navajos speaking their native language. Yet the Navajos were able to translate messages to and from English quickly and accurately. This shows that, for all their differences, languages must have a strong common denominator. Linguistic research is discovering that, in spite of the differences among human languages, the underlying rules that form them are virtually identical. Just as a small number of discrete elements (atoms) combine to form all physical substances, so a small number of discrete factors combine to form languages as varied as English, Japanese, Mohawk, and Hixkaryana. All sentences in all languages are built following a common "recipe", called Universal Grammar. That recipe contains a finite number of choice points, called parameters, which interact with each other in complex ways. As a result, the shapes of phrases and sentences in languages look completely different, even though the underlying rules that form them are almost identical.

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur

Whether all human languages are fundamentally the same or different has been a subject of debate for ages. This problem has deep philosophical implications: If languages are all the same, it implies a fundamental commonality--and thus mutual intelligibility--of human thought.We are now on the verge of solving this problem. Using a twenty-year-old theory proposed by the world's greatest living linguist, Noam Chomsky, researchers have found that the similarities among languages are more profound than the differences. Languages whose grammars seem completely incompatible may in fact be structurally almost identical, except for a difference in one simple rule. The discovery of these rules and how they may vary promises to yield a linguistic equivalent of the Periodic Table of the Elements: a single framework by which we can understand the fundamental structure of all human language. This is a landmark breakthrough both within linguistics, which will herewith finally become a full-fledged science, and in our understanding of the human mind.

Biographie de l'auteur

Mark C. Baker is a professor in the Department of Linguistics and the Center for Cognitive Science at Rutgers University. He lives in Camden, New Jersey.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Oxford University Press
• Date d'édition: 2002
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 019860632X
• ISBN 13: 9780198606321
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 288
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible