The atoms of language
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
The atoms of language
Oxford University Press, 2002
Available at 15 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
  Ibaraki
  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
  Sweden
  Norway
  United States of America
Note
"First published in the United States in 2001 by Basic Books"--T.p. verso
Includes bibliographical references (p. [253]-262) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Human languages are strikingly different from each other, and also strikingly the same. One of the most indecipherable codes used in World War II was Navajos speaking their native language. Yet the Navajos were able to translate messages to and from English quickly and accurately. This shows that, for all their differences, languages must have a strong common denominator. Linguistic research is discovering that, in spite of the differences among human languages, the underlying rules that form them are virtually identical. Just as a small number of discrete elements (atoms) combine to form all physical substances, so a small number of discrete factors combine to form languages as varied as English, Japanese, Mohawk, and Hixkaryana. All sentences in all languages are built following a common "recipe", called Universal Grammar. That recipe contains a finite number of choice points, called parameters, which interact with each other in complex ways. As a result, the shapes of phrases and sentences in languages look completely different, even though the underlying rules that form them are almost identical.
Table of Contents
Preface. 1: The Code Talker Paradox. 2: The Discovery of Atoms. 3: Samples Versus Recipes. 4: Baking a Polysynthetic Language. 5: Alloys and Compounds. 6: Toward a Periodic Table of Languages. 7: Why Parameters?. Notes. Glossary. Map. References. Index
by "Nielsen BookData"