Thinking in Language?: Evolution and a Modularist Possibility

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dc.contributor.authorCarruthers, Peter
dc.date.accessioned2007-03-23T20:25:04Z
dc.date.available2007-03-23T20:25:04Z
dc.date.issued1998
dc.description.abstractThis chapter argues that our language faculty can both be a peripheral module of the mind and be crucially implicated in a variety of central cognitive functions, including conscious propositional thinking and reasoning. I also sketch arguments for the view that natural language representations (e.g. of Chomsky’s Logical Form, or LF) might serve as a lingua franca for interactions (both conscious and non-conscious) between a number of quasi-modular central systems. The ideas presented are compared and contrasted with the evolutionary proposals made by Derek Bickerton (1990, 1995), who has also argued for the involvement of language in thought. Finally, I propose that it was the evolution of a mechanism responsible for pretend play, circa 40,000 years ago, which led to the explosion of creative culture visible in the fossil record from that time onwards.en
dc.format.extent127053 bytes
dc.format.mimetypetext/html
dc.identifier.citationPeter Carruthers. Thinking in Language?: Evolution and a Modularist Possibility. In P.Carruthers and J.Boucher (eds.), Language and Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.en
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/4349
dc.language.isoenen
dc.publisherCambridge University Pressen
dc.relation.isAvailableAtCollege of Arts & Humanitiesen_us
dc.relation.isAvailableAtPhilosophyen_us
dc.relation.isAvailableAtDigital Repository at the University of Marylanden_us
dc.relation.isAvailableAtUniversity of Maryland (College Park, Md.)en_us
dc.rights.licenseCopyright Cambridge University Press - http://www.cambridge.org/us/0521637589en
dc.subjectlanguage facultyen
dc.subjectmodulesen
dc.subjectmodularityen
dc.subjectminden
dc.subjectcognitionen
dc.subjectcognitive functionen
dc.subjectpropositional thinkingen
dc.subjectreasoningen
dc.subjectnatural language representationsen
dc.subjectLogical Formen
dc.subjectquasi-modular central systemsen
dc.subjectevolutionen
dc.titleThinking in Language?: Evolution and a Modularist Possibilityen
dc.typeBook chapteren

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