Creating Language: Integrating Evolution, Acquisition, and Processing

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Morten H. Christiansen (Professor, Cornell University) Nick Chater (Professor of Behavioural Science, The University of Warwick)

Creating Language

Integrating Evolution, Acquisition, and Processing

Morten H. Christiansen (Professor, Cornell University), Nick Chater (Professor of Behavioural Science, The University of Warwick), Peter W. Culicover (Ohio State University)

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English

MIT Press
20 April 2018

linguistics

Series: Creating Language

A work that reveals the profound links between the evolution, acquisition, and processing of language, and proposes a new integrative framework for the language sciences.

Language is a hallmark of the human species; the flexibility and unbounded expressivity of our linguistic abilities is 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.

By: Morten H. Christiansen (Professor Cornell University), Nick Chater (Professor of Behavioural Science, The University of Warwick)
Foreword by: Peter W. Culicover (Ohio State University)
Imprint: MIT Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm, Spine: 19mm
ISBN: 9780262535113
ISBN 10: 0262535114
Series: Creating Language
Pages: 344
Publication Date: 20 April 2018
Recommended Age: From 18 years
Audience: College/higher education , Further / Higher Education
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Morten H. Christiansen is Professor of Psychology and Codirector of the Cognitive Science Program at Cornell University. Nick Chater is Professor of Behavioural Science at Warwick Business School, University of Warwick. Peter Culicover is Professor of Linguistics at Ohio State University.