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<br>
<font face="Arial, Helvetica">John Benjamins Publishing Co. is pleased to
announce the impending publication of <br>
T. Givón's BIO-LINGUISTICS: THE SANTA BARBARA LECTURES
(Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 2002, 377pp . including bibliography and index)
. <br><br>
The book presents an adaptive--evolutionary, variationist, diachronic--
account of human language, an account fully consonant with modern
evolutionary biology, evolutionary psychology and evolutionary
anthropology. In the process, the book challenges rigid
traditional--Platonic/Cartesian--dichotomies such as <i>mind vs.
body</i>, <i>nature vs. nurture</i>, <i>biology vs. culture/history</i>,
i<i>nnate vs. emergent</i>, or l<i>anguage vs. cognition</i>. <br><br>
In placing the core human phenomena of mind, language and culture within
their rightful adaptive context, one neither detracts from their
staggering complexity and apparent uniqueness, nor does one do violence
to the 'hard' constraints of evolutionary biology. Rather, biology and
culture turn out to inter-penetrate and illuminate each other along a
graded continuum. <br><br>
The main chapters of the book are: <br><br>
1. Language as a biological adaptation (overview)<br>
<br>
2. The bounds of generativity and the adaptive basis of variation (the
functional basis of categories and prototypes) <br><br>
3. The demise of competence (an empirical study of so-called
'configurationality' in oral texts from English and Ute) <br><br>
4. Human language as an evolutionary product (on the co-evolution
of language, mind and brain) <br><br>
5. An evolutionary account of language processing rates (an
experimental study of visual processing of objects and events)
<br><br>
6. The diachronic foundations of language universal (the Greenbergial
program of functionality, diachrony, typology and universals) <br><br>
7. Anticipating othere minds: The neuro-cognitive interpretation of
'context' (re-casting the pragmatics of 'context in terms of mental
models) <br><br>
8. The grammar of narrator's perspective in narrative fiction (text-based
study of speaker's 'voice' and grammaticalized modality) <br><br>
9. The society of intimates (the cultural context for inter-personal
cooperation and <br>
communication) <br><br>
10. On the ontology of academic negativity (the pitfalls of doing
science in an institutional context) <br><br>
11. Epilogue: Joseph Greenberg as a theorist <br><br>
The book is dedicated to the memory of the late Joseph Greenberg, a
self-certified lumper of functionalism, diachrony, universals, variation
and evolution. <br><br>
</font><b>US & Canada: <x-tab> </x-tab>Hardcover
ISBN 1 58811 225 X USD 110.00<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab>Paperback
ISBN 1 58811 226 8 USD 43.95<br><br>
Everywhere Else:
<x-tab> </x-tab>Hardcover
ISBN 90 272 2590 7 EUR 110.00<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab>Paperback
ISBN 90 272 2591 5 EUR
44.00<x-tab> </x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab><br>
<x-tab> </x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab><br><br>
<br>
</b><x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
Paul Peranteau (paul@benjamins.com)<br>
P O Box
27519<x-tab> </x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab>Ph:
215 836-1200<br>
Philadelphia PA
19118-0519<x-tab> </x-tab>Fax: 215
836-1204<br>
John Benjamins Publishing Co. website:
<a href="http://www.benjamins.com/" eudora="autourl">http://www.benjamins.com</a></html>