Bio-Linguistics

The Santa Barbara lectures

Author

T. Givón | University of Oregon

Hardbound – Available

ISBN 9789027225900 (Eur) | EUR 130.00

ISBN 9781588112255 (USA) | USD 195.00

Paperback – Available

ISBN 9789027225917 (Eur) | EUR 44.00

ISBN 9781588112262 (USA) | USD 66.00

e-Book –

ISBN 9789027296061 | EUR 130.00/44.00*
| USD 195.00/66.00*

Is human language an evolutionary adaptation? Is linguistics a natural science? These questions have bedeviled philosophers, philologists and linguists from Plato through Chomsky. Prof. Givón suggests that the answers fall naturally within an integrated study of living organisms.

In this new work, Givón points out that language operates between aspects of both complex biological design and adaptive behavior. As in biology, the whole is an adaptive compromise to competing demands. Variation is the indispensable tool of learning, change and adaptation. The contrast between innateness and input-driven emergence is an interaction between genetically-coded and behaviorally-coded experience.

In enlarging the cross-disciplinary domain, the book examines the parallels between language evolution and language diachrony. Sociality, cooperation and communication are shown to be rooted in a common evolutionary source, the kin-based hunting-and-gathering society of intimates.

The book pays homage to the late Joseph Greenberg and his visionary integration of functional motivation, typological diversity and diachronic change.

[Not in series, 113] 2002. xviii, 383 pp.

Publishing status: Available

https://doi.org/10.1075/z.113

Table of Contents

Preface | p. xv

1. Language as a biological adaptation | pp. 1–29

2. The bounds of generativity and the adaptive basis of variation | pp. 31–69

3. The demise of competence | pp. 71–122

4. Human language as an evolutionary product | pp. 123–161

5. An evolutionary account of language processing rates | pp. 163–202

6. The diachronic foundations of language universals | pp. 203–222

7. The neuro-cognitive interpretation of ‘context’: Anticipating other minds | pp. 223–259

8. The grammar of the narrator’s perspective in fiction | pp. 261–299

9. The society of intimates | pp. 301–331

10. On the ontology of academic negativity | pp. 333–343

Epilogue: Joseph Greenberg as a theorist | pp. 345–353

Index | pp. 377–383

“I believe that this book opens new horizons in linguistics... 'Bio-Linguistics' provides the reader with the material to admire, reflect upon, agree with or disagree with. Besides being a manifest of linguistics of a new type. 'Bio-Linguistics' is a brilliant handbook that can help bring up a linguist who thinks within common sense frame and who would not de frightened to penetrate into both subtle details of particular investigations and into the soars of general theory. The book is vivid and full of humor.”

Marina Rusakova, Saint Petersburg State University on Linguist List 14-3125 (2003)

Cited by

Cited by 56 other publications

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A. Fox, Barbara

2007. Principles shaping grammatical practices: an exploration. Discourse Studies 9:3 ► pp. 299 ff.

Aaron, P. G. & R. Malatesha Joshi

2006. Written Language Is as Natural as Spoken language: A Biolinguistic Perspective. Reading Psychology 27:4 ► pp. 263 ff.

Abbi, Anvita

2023. Great Andamanese the Sixth Language Family of India: An Inquiry into the Possible Human Language. In Language Studies in India, ► pp. 107 ff.

Abraham, Werner

2020. Modality in Syntax, Semantics and Pragmatics,

Connell, Bruce, David Zeitlyn, Sascha Griffiths, Laura Hayward & Marieke Martin

2021. Language ecology, language endangerment, and relict languages: Case studies from Adamawa (Cameroon-Nigeria). Open Linguistics 7:1 ► pp. 244 ff.

Croft, William

2017. Typology and Universals. In The Handbook of Linguistics, ► pp. 39 ff.

Dellert, Johannes, Niklas Erben Johansson, Johan Frid & Gerd Carling

2021. Preferred sound groups of vocal iconicity reflect evolutionary mechanisms of sound stability and first language acquisition: evidence from Eurasia. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 376:1824

Ferrer i Cancho, Ramon, Oliver Riordan & Béla Bollobás

2005. The consequences of Zipf's law for syntax and symbolic reference. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 272:1562 ► pp. 561 ff.

Fitch, W. Tecumseh

2017. Empirical approaches to the study of language evolution. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 24:1 ► pp. 3 ff.

François, Jacques

2010. Trois monographies récentes sur les parcours de grammaticalisation et la linguistique de l'usage. Syntaxe & Sémantique N° 11:1 ► pp. 185 ff.

García Salido, Marcos

2018. Referential and Non-referential Uses of the Third Person Pronominal Subject in Spanish. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 47:2 ► pp. 355 ff.

Giora, Rachel, Shir Givoni, Vered Heruti & Ofer Fein

2017. The Role of Defaultness in Affecting Pleasure: The Optimal Innovation Hypothesis Revisited. Metaphor and Symbol 32:1 ► pp. 1 ff.

Giora, Rachel, Dalia Meytes, Ariela Tamir, Shir Givoni, Vered Heruti & Ofer Fein

2017. Chapter 10. Defaultness shines while affirmation pales. In Irony in Language Use and Communication [Figurative Thought and Language, 1], ► pp. 219 ff.

Givón, T.

2015. The Diachrony of Grammar,

Givón, T.

2017. The Story of Zero,

Givón, T.

2018. On Understanding Grammar,

Givón, T.

2019. Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes,

Givón, T.

2020. Coherence,

Gontier, Nathalie

2012. Selectionist Approaches in Evolutionary Linguistics: An Epistemological Analysis. International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 26:1 ► pp. 67 ff.

Green, Clarence

2014. On the relationship between clause combination, grammatical hierarchy and discourse-pragmatic coherence. Functions of Language 21:3 ► pp. 297 ff.

Green, Clarence

2017. Approaches to English Clause Grammar. In Patterns and Development in the English Clause System, ► pp. 1 ff.

Green, Clarence

2017. Clause Combination in English. In Patterns and Development in the English Clause System, ► pp. 17 ff.

Green, Clarence

2017. Discourse Coherence and Clause Combination. In Patterns and Development in the English Clause System, ► pp. 149 ff.

Harder, Peter

2016. Substance(s) and the rise and imposition of structure(s). Acta Linguistica Hafniensia 48:1 ► pp. 7 ff.

Kitova, Elena & Anastasia Melgunova

2019. The Reflection of the Social Value Hierarchy in the Concepts of Data Protection and Freedom of Information. Theoretical and Practical Issues of Journalism 8:2 ► pp. 330 ff.

Konior, Daria V.

2020. Patterns and Mechanisms of Lexical Changes in the Languages of Symbiotic Communities: Kinship Terminology in Karashevo (Banat, Romania). Slovene 9:1 ► pp. 381 ff.

Kuteva, Tania, Bernd Heine, Bo Hong, Haiping Long, Heiko Narrog & Seongha Rhee

2019. World Lexicon of Grammaticalization,

Larrivée, Pierre

2003. La contingence des faits linguistiques : réflexions sur la variation et le changement. Corela :1-2

Leppänen, Ville

2019. Linguistic variation and change. In Normativity in Language and Linguistics [Studies in Language Companion Series, 209], ► pp. 183 ff.

Lombardi Vallauri, Edoardo

2016. The “exaptation” of linguistic implicit strategies. SpringerPlus 5:1

Masia, Viviana

2017. A sociobiological account of indirect speech. Interaction Studies. Social Behaviour and Communication in Biological and Artificial Systems 18:1 ► pp. 142 ff.

Masia, Viviana

2022. Remarks on information structure marking asymmetries. In When Data Challenges Theory [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, 273], ► pp. 58 ff.

Mondal, Prakash

2012. Can Internalism and Externalism be Reconciled in a Biological Epistemology of Language?. Biosemiotics 5:1 ► pp. 61 ff.

Nöth, Winfried

2015. Biolinguistics and Biosemiotics. In Biosemiotic Perspectives on Language and Linguistics [Biosemiotics, 13], ► pp. 151 ff.

Pennisi, Antonino & Alessandra Falzone

2016. The Update of the Biolinguistic Agenda. In Darwinian Biolinguistics [Perspectives in Pragmatics, Philosophy & Psychology, 12], ► pp. 31 ff.

Pennisi, Antonino & Alessandra Falzone

2016. Another Biolinguistics History: From Aristotle to Darwin. In Darwinian Biolinguistics [Perspectives in Pragmatics, Philosophy & Psychology, 12], ► pp. 39 ff.

Progovac, Ljiljana

2019. Gradualist Approaches to Language Evolution. In A Critical Introduction to Language Evolution [SpringerBriefs in Linguistics, ], ► pp. 31 ff.

Progovac, Ljiljana, Natalia Rakhlin, William Angell, Ryan Liddane, Lingfei Tang & Noa Ofen

2018. Diversity of Grammars and Their Diverging Evolutionary and Processing Paths: Evidence From Functional MRI Study of Serbian. Frontiers in Psychology 9

Radford, Andrew

2020. An Introduction to English Sentence Structure,

Rosário, Ivo da Costa do

2020. Variação construcional no domínio da adição. In Sociolinguística e funcionalismo: vertentes e interfaces, ► pp. 103 ff.

Satık, Deniz

2022. The strong minimalist thesis is too strong: Syntax is more than just merge. Biolinguistics 16

Strahan, Tania & Lesley Stirling

2016. “What the hell was in that wine?”. Narrative Inquiry 26:2 ► pp. 430 ff.

Számadó, Szabolcs

2010. Pre-Hunt Communication Provides Context for the Evolution of Early Human Language. Biological Theory 5:4 ► pp. 366 ff.

Thomas, Margaret

2020. On the reception and revivification of Cartesian linguistics. In History of Linguistics 2017 [Studies in the History of the Language Sciences, 127], ► pp. 157 ff.

Tyurkan (Belichenko), Elena

2015. Holistic Linguistics: Anthropocentric Foundations and the Functional-Cognitive Paradigm. Prague Journal of English Studies 4:1 ► pp. 125 ff.

Vallauri, Edoardo Lombardi & Viviana Masia

2018. Facilitating Automation in Sentence Processing: The Emergence of Topic and Presupposition in Human Communication. Topoi 37:2 ► pp. 343 ff.

Xu, Zhichang

2008. Analysis of Syntactic Features of Chinese English. Asian Englishes 11:2 ► pp. 4 ff.

[no author supplied]

2014. Exploring Functional-Cognitive Space [Studies in Language Companion Series, 157],

[no author supplied]

2017. Sociobiological Bases of Information Structure [Advances in Interaction Studies, 9],

[no author supplied]

2020. Chapter 6. Discourse coherence. In Coherence, ► pp. 104 ff.

[no author supplied]

2020. Chapter 10. Coherence and the bounds of diversity. In Coherence, ► pp. 228 ff.

[no author supplied]

2020. Chapter 5. Language, coherence and other minds. In Coherence, ► pp. 82 ff.

[no author supplied]

2020. Chapter 8. The coherence of organized science. In Coherence, ► pp. 176 ff.

[no author supplied]

2020. Chapter 3. Complexity, hierarchy and coherence in neuro-cognition. In Coherence, ► pp. 32 ff.

[no author supplied]

2021. The Manipulative Disguise of Truth [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 322],

[no author supplied]

2022. Modeling Irony [Figurative Thought and Language, 12],

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 19 april 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

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