Jackendoff Ray S. Patterns In The Mind: Language And Human Nature

BasicBooks. 1994. — 246 p. — ISBN: 0465054617, 0465054625.What is it about the human mind that accounts for the fact that we can speak and understand a language? Why can’t other creatures do the same? And what does this tell us about the rest of human abilities? Recent dramatic discoveries in linguistics and psychology provide intriguing answers to these age-old mysteries.The fundamental arguments
Finding our way into the problem: The nature/nurture issue
The argument for mental grammar
The argument for innate knowledge
The organization of mental grammar
Overview
Phonological structure
Syntactic structure
American sign language
Evidence for the biological basis of language
How children learn language
Language acquisition in unusual circumstances I
Language acquisition in unusual circumstances II
Language and the brain
Mental capacities other than language
The argument for the construction of experience
Music and vision
Language as a window on thought
Social organization