How the Brain Evolved Language

by Donald Loritz

How can an infinite number of sentences be generated from one human mind? How did language evolve in apes? In this book Donald Loritz addresses these and other fundamental and vexing questions about language, cognition, and the human brain. He starts by tracing how evolution and natural adaptation selected certain features of the brain to perform communication functions, then shows how those features developed into designs for human language. The result -- what Loritz calls an adaptive grammar -- gives a unified explanation of language in the brain and contradicts directly (and controversially) the theory of innateness proposed by, among others, Chomsky and Pinker.

Genres: Nonfiction, Linguistics

Paperback

First published October 7, 1999

Reviews

[Stefan]

I am into psychology and this book is very much related to this subject. It does not just talk about language but also about people and how our mind works. For some readers it might be boring because it is non fiction but i found it very interesting and i would recommend it to anyone who wants to learn about people and how we work.