On Sale: Oct 8, 2002
Page Count: 288 pages
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN-13: 9780465005222

$18.99

$23.99 CAD

Format

Format:

Trade Paperback $18.99 $23.99 CAD
ebook $12.99 $16.99 CAD

Also available from:

Whether all human languages are fundamentally the same or different has been a subject of debate for ages. This problem has deep philosophical implications: If languages are all the same, it implies a fundamental commonality-and thus the mutual intelligibility-of human thought. We are now on the verge of answering this question. Using a twenty-year-old theory proposed by the world’s greatest living linguist, Noam Chomsky, researchers have found that the similarities among languages are more profound than the differences. Languages whose grammars seem completely incompatible may in fact be structurally almost identical, except for a difference in one simple rule. The discovery of these rules and how they may vary promises to yield a linguistic equivalent of the Periodic Table of the Elements: a single framework by which we can understand the fundamental structure of all human language. This is a landmark breakthrough, both within linguistics, which will thereby become a full-fledged science for the first time, and in our understanding of the human mind.

Genre:

By clicking ‘Sign Up,’ I acknowledge that I have read and agree to Hachette Book Group’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Use

Mark C. Baker

About the Author

Mark C. Baker is a professor in the Department of Linguistics and the Center for Cognitive Science at Rutgers University. He lives in Camden, New Jersey.

Learn more about this author

Follow Us

The Atoms Of Language

Format

Format:

Also available from:

Genre:

Mark C. Baker

About the Author

Promotion

Contributors

Formats and Prices

Price

Price

Format

Format:

Also available from:

Description

Genre:

You May Also Like

Newsletter Signup

Mark C. Baker

About the Author