Book notice: How New Languages Emerge

[Harold F. Schiffman]

How New Languages Emerge

2006 Cambridge University Press http://us.cambridge.org

Book URL:
http://www.cambridge.org/us/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=0521676290

Author: David Lightfoot, Georgetown University

New languages are constantly emerging, as existing languages diverge into
different forms. To explain this fascinating process, we need to
understand how languages change and how they emerge in children. In this
pioneering study, David Lightfoot explains how languages come into being,
arguing that children are the driving force. He explores how new systems
arise, how they are acquired by children, and how adults and children play
different, complementary roles in language change. Lightfoot makes an
important distinction between 'external language' (language as it exists
in the world), and 'internal language' (language as represented in an
individual's brain). By examining the interplay between the two, he shows
how children are 'cue-based' learners, who scan their external linguistic
environment for new structures, making sense of the world outside in order
to build their internal language. Engaging and original, this book offers
a pathbreaking new account of language acquisition, variation and change.

Contents
1. Internal languages and the outside world;
2. Traditional language change;
3. Some properties of language organs;
4. Languages emerging in children;
5. New E-languages cuing new I-languages;
6. Use and variation of grammars;
7. The eruption of new grammars;
8. A new historical linguistics.

http://linguistlist.org/issues/17/17-1250.html