Birdsong, Speech, and Language: Exploring the Evolution of Mind and Brain - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0262018608 ISBN 13: 9780262018609

Publisher: Mit Pr, 2013

Synopsis

Prominent scholars consider the cognitive and neural similarities between birdsong and human speech and language.

Scholars have long been captivated by the parallels between birdsong and human speech and language. In this book, leading scholars draw on the latest research to explore what birdsong can tell us about the biology of human speech and language and the consequences for evolutionary biology. After outlining the basic issues involved in the study of both language and evolution, the contributors compare birdsong and language in terms of acquisition, recursion, and core structural properties, and then examine the neurobiology of song and speech, genomic factors, and the emergence and evolution of language.

Contributors
Hermann Ackermann, Gabriël J.L. Beckers, Robert C. Berwick, Johan J. Bolhuis, Noam Chomsky, Frank Eisner, Martin Everaert, Michale S. Fee, Olga Fehér, Simon E. Fisher, W. Tecumseh Fitch, Jonathan B. Fritz, Sharon M.H. Gobes, Riny Huijbregts, Eric Jarvis, Robert Lachlan, Ann Law, Michael A. Long, Gary F. Marcus, Carolyn McGettigan, Daniel Mietchen, Richard Mooney, Sanne Moorman, Kazuo Okanoya, Christophe Pallier, Irene M. Pepperberg, Jonathan F. Prather, Franck Ramus, Eric Reuland, Constance Scharff, Sophie K. Scott, Neil Smith, Ofer Tchernichovski, Carel ten Cate, Christopher K. Thompson, Frank Wijnen, Moira Yip, Wolfram Ziegler, Willem Zuidema

About this title

About the Author

Johan J. Bolhuis is Professor of Cognitive Neurobiology at Utrecht University.

Martin Everaert is Professor of Linguistics at Utrecht University.

Robert C. Berwick is Professor of Computational Linguistics and Computer Science and Engineering, in the Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems and the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society at MIT and the author of Computational Complexity and Natural Language and The Acquisition of Syntactic Knowledge, both published by the MIT Press.

Noam Chomsky is Institute Professor and Professor of Linguistics (Emeritus) at MIT and the author of many influential books on linguistics, including Aspects of the Theory of Syntax and The Minimalist Program, both published by the MIT Press.

Martin Everaert is Professor of Linguistics at Utrecht University.

Review

This book is devoted to a topic―birdsong and human speech―that is of interest to evolutionary biologists and to students of human language, as well as to the general reader. Both humans and birds produce and react to acoustic signals, but they do so in ways that have some similarities and many obvious differences. The authors of the different chapters are the world's leading experts on the topics they discuss, and their chapters contribute information, of which much is totally new and of obvious importance.

―Morris Halle, Institute Professor and Professor of Linguistics, Emeritus, MIT

Edition details

• Publisher: Mit Pr
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0262018608
• ISBN 13: 9780262018609
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 542
• Editor: Bolhuis Johan J., Everaert Martin