Ideophones and the Evolution of Language
eBook - PDF

Ideophones and the Evolution of Language

  1. English
  2. PDF
  3. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

Ideophones and the Evolution of Language

About this book

Ideophones have been recognized in modern linguistics at least since 1935, but they still lie far outside the concerns of mainstream (Western) linguistic debate, in part because they are most richly attested in relatively unstudied (often unwritten) languages. The evolution of language, on the other hand, has recently become a fashionable topic, but all speculations so far have been almost totally data-free. Without disputing the tenet that there are no primitive languages, this book argues that ideophones may be an atavistic throwback to an earlier stage of communication, where sounds and gestures were paired in what can justifiably be called a 'prelinguistic' fashion. The structure of ideophones may also provide answers to deeper questions, among them how communicative gestures may themselves have emerged from practical actions. Moreover, their current distribution and behaviour provide hints as to how they may have become conventional words in languages with conventional rules.

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Yes, you can access Ideophones and the Evolution of Language by John Haiman in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Languages & Linguistics & Phonetics & Phonology. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Half-title
  3. Title page
  4. Copyright information
  5. Dedication
  6. Table of contents
  7. Acknowledgments
  8. 1 The Gestural Origins of Human Language
  9. 2 What Are Ideophones?
  10. 3 Lexical Origins of Ideophones
  11. 4 Vocal Gestures, or Suiting the Word to the Action
  12. 5 From Doing to Saying, or Ideophones as a Possible Solution to the Ritualization Problem
  13. 6 Harnessing Ideophones: From Showing to Telling
  14. 7 Play, Art, and Language: Motivations for Repetition
  15. References
  16. Topics Index
  17. Names Index
  18. Languages Index