Language, Mind and Brain is a delightfully readable, yet erudite exploration of how the human mind processes and orders sounds and words into meaning. It explores how properties of the human mind/brain constrain linguistic structure and how linguistics can benefit by combining traditional linguistic methodologies with insights from research on language acquisition, processing, and impairment. The first part of the book offers a useful introduction to the relevant issues for readers with little prior knowledge of these disciplines; part two addresses such key issues as the status of rules, the relationship between grammar and the lexicon, and the relationship between innate structure and acquired knowledge. Fascinating for anyone interested in the intricacies of how language is acquired and how the brain sorts sounds into communication.
Chapter 1: Introduction Part I: The Basic SpecificationsChapter 2: Language Processing: Speed and Flexibility1. The Complexity of the Task2. Speed3. Processing Shortcuts 4. Implications for Linguistic Theory Chapter 3: Language Acquisition: Robustness1. Individual Differences2. The Role of Input3. Language Development in Blind Children4. The Robustness of Language Chapter 4: Language in the Brain 1. The Localisation Issue2. Preservation of Grammatical Knowledge in Brosca's Aphasia3. The Co-occurrence of Lexical and Grammatical Deficits4. The Resilience of Language Chapter 5: Language and Other Cognitive Processes1. A Genetically Specified Language Module?2. Human Adaptations to Language3. Language Adaptations to Humans4. Universal Grammar Again5. Conclusion Part II: The Building Blocks of Language Chapter 7: Words1. The Semantics of Locative Terms2. The Acquisition of Locative Terms3. Innate Structure, yes-but of What Kind?4. Lexical Learning in a Constrained Connectionist Network5. Conclusion Chapter 8: On Rules and Regularity1. Words and Rules2. The Connectionist Bombshell3. The Linguists Strike Back4. The Dual-Mechanism Model5. The German Plural: A Minority Default?6. An Inflectional System Without a Default: The Polish Genitive7. The Final Test Case: The Polish Dative8. Interim Conclusions9. Challenges for Connectionism Chapter 9: Syntactic Constructions1. Ties between Lexical and Grammatical Knowledge2. Multi-word Units in Acquisition3. A Case Study: Questions Chapter 10: The Cognitive Enterprise1. Towards a Psychologically Realistic Grammar 2. A Crash Course in Cognitive Grammar3. Language Production in a CG Framework4. A Cognitive View of Language Acquisition5. More on Regularity6. Future Directions BibliographyIndex
