Articulate Mammal

Requiring no prior knowledge of the subject, this text tackles basic questions central to the study of psycholinguistics, such as whether language is restricted to humans, whether there is biological evidence for innate language activity, how children learn language, and how we understand, plan and produce language. The author investigates these issues with regard to animal communication, child language and the language of adults, and provides references and suggestions for further reading.;The book has been substantially revised, in particular taking account of the considerable changes in Chomsky's recent ideas. As a result, the chapters on grammatical innateness, child language acquisition and speech comprehension have been largely rewritten. 

 

The great automatic grammatizor - need anything be innate?; animals that try to talk - is language restricted to humans?; Grandmama's teeth - is there biological evidence for innate language capacity?; predestinate grooves - is there a pre-ordained language "programme"?; the blueprint in the brain - what grammatical information might conceivably be innate?; chattering children - are chattering children following "rules" when they learn to speak?; puzzling it out - exactly how do children learn language?; celestial unintelligibility - why propose a transformational grammar?; the white elephant problem - do we need a transformational grammar in order to speak?; the case of the missing fingerprint - how do we understand speech?; the Cheshire Cat's grin - how do we plan and produce speech?; banker's clerk or hippopotamus? - the future of psycholinguistics.