Linguistic Evolution through Language Acquisition [Paperback]

A study of how children acquire language and how this affects language change over generations.This is a new and groundbreaking study of how children acquire language and how this affects language change over the generations. Drawing on a wide range of examples, the book covers the why and how of specific syntactic universals; the nature of syntactic change; the language-learning mechanisms required to acquire an existing linguistic system accurately and to impose further structure on an emerging system; and the evolution of language(s) in relation to this learning mechanism.This is a new and groundbreaking study of how children acquire language and how this affects language change over the generations. Drawing on a wide range of examples, the book covers the why and how of specific syntactic universals; the nature of syntactic change; the language-learning mechanisms required to acquire an existing linguistic system accurately and to impose further structure on an emerging system; and the evolution of language(s) in relation to this learning mechanism.This groundbreaking study of how children acquire language and the effects on language change over the generations draws on a wide range of examples. The book covers specific syntactic universals and the nature of syntactic change. It reviews the language-learning mechanisms required to acquire an existing linguistic system (accurately and to impose further structure on an emerging system) and the evolution of language(s) in relation to this learning mechanism.1. Introduction Ted Briscoe; 2. Learned systems of arbitrary reference: the foundation of human linguistic uniqueness Michael Oliphant; 3. Bootstrapping grounded word semantics Luc Steels; 4. Linguistic structure and the evolution of words Robert Worden; 5. The negotiation and acquisition of recursive grammars as a result of competition among exemplars John Batali; 6. Learning, bottlenecks and the evolution of recursive syntax Simon Kirby; 7. Theories of cultural‰