The Grammar of Genes: How the Genetic Code Resembles the Linguistic Code (European Semiotics / Sémiotiques Européennes) - Softcover

Lopez-Garcia, Angel

Softcover

ISBN 10: 3039106546 ISBN 13: 9783039106547

Publisher: Peter Lang AG, Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften, 2005

Synopsis

Mankind is the only speaking species on earth. Hence language is supposed to have a genetic basis, no matter whether it relies on general intelligence, or on a linguistic module. This study proposes that universal formal properties of the linguistic code emerged from the genetic code through duplication. The proportion of segmental duplication is clearly higher in the human genome than in any other species, and duplication took place 6 million years ago when humans separated from the other hominid branches. The evolution of language is therefore supposed to be a gradual process with a break. This book describes a lot of striking formal resemblances the genetic code and the linguistic code hold in common. The book aims to reconcile generative grammar with cognitive semiotics showing that both of them constitute instances of embodiment.

About this title

About the Author

The Author: Ángel López-García is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Valencia (Spain), and he has been a visiting Professor at the universities of Virginia, Mainz, Minnesota, Tucumán and Aarhus. He helped to develop the Liminar Grammar model of Cognitive Linguistics as soon as 1980, and elaborated a series of applications to natural languages. He is the author of two dozens of books and some two hundred papers on Linguistics, Semiotics, and Communication. He received the Prix Honoré Chavée de l’Académie Française.

Edition details

• Publisher: Peter Lang AG, Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften
• Publication date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 3039106546
• ISBN 13: 9783039106547
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 184