The studies reported above demonstrate the severe communication deficits that affect the spatial discourse of DAT patients. Their capacities to communicate are limited in many domains, but this is especially evident in the domain of space. Language itself is not affected and no sign of aphasia was shown by the patients involved in our studies. This is an important point, in that it allows the scientist to obtain knowledge about the DAT patients’ spatial difficulties, complementing the many studies that have documented the severe deficits they experience in spatial orientation and navigation.
Asking Questions examines a central phenomenon of language - the use of sentences to ask questions. Although there is a sizable literature on the syntax and semantics of interrogatives, the logic of "questions", and the speech act of questioning, no one has tried to put the syntax and semantics together with the speech acts over the full range of phenomena we pretheoretically think of as asking questions. Robert Fiengo not only does this, but also takes up some more foundational issues in the theory of language. By positioning the findings of contemporary grammatical theorizing within the larger domain of language use, Fiengo challenges the use theorist to acknowledge the importance of grammatical form and the grammarian to acknowledge the importance of use.
ELEMENTS OF FOLK PSYCHOLOGY
Wilhelm Wundt
The Macmillan Company 1921 pp.570
This image of a root originated among grammarians at a: time when the
view was current that, just as the stem and branches of a plant grow
out of its root, so also in the development of a language does a word
always arise out of a group of either simple or composite sounds that
embody the main idea. But the component parts of a language are
certainly not roots in this sense; every simple monosyllabic word
combines with others, and from this combination there result, in part,
modifications in meaning, and, in part, sentences. Language, thus, does
not develop by sprouting and growing, but by, agglomeration and
agglutination.
p.99
The German Language introduces students of German to a
linguistic way of looking at the language. Written from a Chomksyan
perspective, this volume covers the basic structural components of the
German language: syntax, morphology, phonetics, phonology, and the
lexicon.
Explores the linguistic structure of German from current theoretical perspectives.
Written from a Chomksyan perspective, this volume covers the basic
structural components of the German language: syntax, morphology,
phonetics, phonology, and the lexicon.
Serves as a valuable resource for students of German language and
literature and for linguists with little or no background in the
language.
Includes exercises, definitions of key terms, and suggestions for further reading.
Also a very good material for comparative linguistics.
Developments in cognitive science indicate that human and nonhuman primates share a range of behavioral and physiological characteristics that speak to the issue of language origins. Three major themes: First, it is argued that scientists in animal behavior and anthropology need to move beyond theoretical debate to a more empirically focused and comparative approach to language. Second, those empirical and comparative methods are described, revealing underpinnings of language, some of which are shared by humans and other primates and others of which are unique to humans. Third, evolutionary challenges that led to adaptive changes in communication over time are considered with an eye toward understanding various constraints that channeled the process.