New Benjamins title: Giv ón-The Genesis of Syntactic Complexity

[Paul Peranteau]

http://www.benjamins.com/cgi-bin/t_bookview.cgi?bookid=Z%20146

The Genesis of Syntactic Complexity
Diachrony, ontogeny, neuro-cognition, evolution
T. Givón  University of Oregon

2009. xviii, 366 pp.
Hardbound: 978 90 272 3253 3 / EUR 110.00 / USD 165.00
Paperback  978 90 272 3254 0 / EUR 36.00 / USD 54.00

Complex hierarchic syntax is a hallmark of human language. The 
highest level of syntactic complexity, recursive-embedded clauses, 
has been singled out by some for a special status as the evolutionary 
apex of the uniquely - human language faculty - evolutionary yet 
mysteriously immune to Darwinian adaptive selection. Prof. Givón's 
book treats syntactic complexity as an integral part of the 
evolutionary rise of human communication. The book first describes 
grammar as an adaptive instrument of communication, assembled upon 
the pre-existing platform of pre-linguistic object- and-event 
cognition and mental representation. It then surveys the two grand 
developmental trends of human language: diachrony, the communal 
enterprise directly responsible for fashioning synchronic 
morpho-syntax and cross-language diversity; and ontogeny, the 
individual endeavor directly responsible for acquiring the competent 
use of grammar. The genesis of syntactic complexity along these two 
developmental trends is compared with second language acquisition, 
pre-grammatical pidgin and pre-human communication. The evolutionary 
relevance of language diachrony, language ontogeny and pidginization 
is argued for on general bio-evolutionary grounds: It is the 
organism's adaptive on-line behavior- invention, learning and skill 
acquisition - that is the common thread running through all three 
developmental trends. The neuro-cognitive circuits that underlie 
language, and their evolutionary underpinnings, are described and 
assessed. Recursive embedding turns out to be not an adaptive target 
on its own, but the by-product of two distinct adaptive moves: (i) 
the recruitment of conjoined clauses as modal operators on, or 
referential specifiers of, other clauses; and (ii) the subsequent 
condensation of paratactic into syntactic structures.
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Table of contents
Copyright acknowledgment  xv
Preface  xviixviii
Part I. Background
Chapter 1. Complexity: An overview  317
Chapter 2. The adaptive approach to grammar  1937
Part II. Diachrony
Chapter 3. The diachrony of grammar  4160
Chapter 4. Multiple routes to clause-union: The diachrony of complex 
verb phrases  6196
Chapter 5. The diachrony of relative clauses: Syntactic complexity in 
the noun phrase  97120
Part III. Ontogeny
Chapter 6. Child language acquisition  123128
Chapter 7. The ontogeny of complex verb phrases: How children learn 
to negotiate fact and desire  129203
Chapter 8. The ontogeny of relative clauses: How children learn to 
negotiate complex reference  205240
Chapter 9. Second-language pidgin  241247
Part IV. Biology
Chapter 10. From single words to verbal clauses: Where do simple 
clauses come from?  251281
Chapter 11. The neuro-cognition of syntactic complexity  283304
Chapter 12. Syntactic complexity and language evolution  305338
Bibliography  339355
Index  357366
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"Language evolution and the rise of linguistic complexity are popular 
themes in contemporary linguistics, anthropology, the cognitive 
sciences, archaeology, and other disciplines. A number of the 
scholars working on these themes use cross-disciplinary approaches 
but, to my knowledge, none of them has developed an 
inter-disciplinary framework that would compare to the one proposed 
in Givón's book The Genesis of Syntactic Complexity. By integrating a 
range of relevant phenomena into a coherent model of reconstruction, 
he is able to present a new perspective on how human language evolved 
-- one that is distinctly more convincing than other perspectives 
that I am aware of."
Professor Bernd Heine, University of Cologne
"Givón has done it again. He has linked together convincing evidence 
regarding human evolution, language change, and child language 
learning to resolve a core issue in cognitive and linguistic science.
The issue on the table is whether or not syntactic complexity depends 
on a chance mutation in recent human evolution that introduced an 
entirely novel cognitive ability called recursion. Givón shows that 
complexity arises instead from the natural logic of combination and 
variation upon which all biology and development is grounded. He 
supports this analysis with the most lucid presentation of diachronic 
data, neurolinguistic findings, and transcript analysis I have ever 
read. In fact, Givón has not only done it again; he has outdone himself."
Prof. Brian MacWhinney, Carnegie Mellon University





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