Name: Language, from a Biological Point of View
SKU: 1-4438-3781-4
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Language, from a Biological Point of View

Current Issues in Biolinguistics

Edited By: Cedric Boeckx, María del Carmen Horno-Chéliz

£49.99

This collection of essays explores biolinguistics, the synthesis of linguistics and biology. Chapters offer an overview of forefront research into language structure, development, the brain, and evolution, highlighting both exciting prospects and obstacles.

The present volume offers a collection of essays covering a broad range of areas where currently a rapprochement between linguistics and biology is actively being…

The present volume offers a collection of essays covering a broad range of areas where currently a rapprochement between linguistics and biology is actively being sought. Following a certain tradition, we call this attempt at a synthesis “biolinguistics.” The nine chapters (grouped into three parts: Language and Cognition, Language and the Brain, and Language and the Species) offer a comprehensive overview of issues at the forefront of biolinguistic research, such as language structure; language development; linguistic change and variation; language disorders and language processing; the cognitive, neural and genetic basis of linguistic knowledge; or the evolution of the Faculty of Language. Each contribution highlights exciting prospects for the field, but they also point to significant obstacles along the way. The main conclusion is that the age of theoretical exclusivity in Linguistics, much like the age of theoretical specificity, will have to end if interdisciplinarity is to reign and if biolinguistics is to flourish.

Cedric Boeckx is Research Professor at the Catalan Institute for Advanced Studies (ICREA), and a member of the Linguistics Department at the University of Barcelona. He is the author of numerous books, including Islands and Chains (2003), Linguistic Minimalism (2006), Understanding Minimalist Syntax (2007), Bare Syntax (2008), and Language in Cognition (2009); and the founding co-editor, with Kleanthes K. Grohmann, of the Open Access journal Biolinguistics.

María del Carmen Horno-Chéliz is Professor of General Linguistics at the University of Zaragoza. Her research has focused on the syntax/semantics interface. She is the author of Lo que la preposición esconde (2001). At present she is interested in the nature of the lexicon and its relationships with syntactic computation, and with memory and cognition.

José-Luis Mendívil-Giró is Professor of General Linguistics at the University of Zaragoza. He was the main researcher working on the project Typology and Internal Variation of the Case and Agreement Systems in the World’s Languages, and is the author of Gramática natural. La gramática generativa y la tercera cultura (2003), and Origen, evolución y diversidad de las lenguas. Una aproximación biolingüística (2009).