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Agreement and Head Movement: Clitics, Incorporation, and Defective Goals

Ian Roberts

This book explores the consequences of Noam Chomsky’s conjecture that head movement is not part of the narrow syntax, the computational system which relates the lexicon to the interfaces. Unlike ... More

This book explores the consequences of Noam Chomsky’s conjecture that head movement is not part of the narrow syntax, the computational system which relates the lexicon to the interfaces. Unlike other treatments of the subject that discard the concept entirely, it retains the core intuition behind head movement and examines the extent to which it can be reformulated and rethought. The book argues that the current conception of syntax must accommodate a species of head movement, although this operation differs somewhat in technical detail and in empirical coverage from earlier understandings of it. It proposes that head movement is part of the narrow syntax and that it applies where the goal of an Agree relation is defective, in a sense that it defines, contending that the theoretical status of head movement is very similar—in fact identical in various ways—to that of XP-movement. Thus head movement, like XP-movement, should be regarded as part of narrow syntax exactly to the extent that XP movement should be. If one aspect of minimalist theorizing is to eliminate unnecessary distinctions, then the book’s argument can be seen as eliminating the distinction between “heads” and “phrases” in relation to internal merge (and therefore reducing the distinctions currently made between internal and external merge).Less

Agreement and Its Failures

Omer Preminger

This monograph shows that the typically obligatory nature of predicate-argument agreement in phi-features (phi-agreement) cannot be captured through “derivational time-bombs” – elements of the ... More

This monograph shows that the typically obligatory nature of predicate-argument agreement in phi-features (phi-agreement) cannot be captured through “derivational time-bombs” – elements of the initial representation that cannot be part of a well-formed, end-of-the-derivation structure, and which are eliminated by the application of phi-agreement itself. This includes, but is not limited to, the ‘uninterpretable features’ of Chomsky 2000, 2001. Instead, it requires recourse to an operation – one whose invocation is obligatory, but whose successful culmination is not enforced by the grammar. The book also discusses the implications of this conclusion for the analysis of dative intervention. This leads to a novel view of how case assignment interacts with phi-agreement, and furnishes an argument that both phi-agreement and so-called “morphological case” must be computed within the syntactic component proper. Finally, the author surveys other domains where the empirical state of affairs proves well-suited for the same operations-based logic: Object Shift, the Definiteness Effect, and long-distance wh-movement.This research is based on data from the Kichean branch of Mayan (primarily from Kaqchikel), as well as from Basque, Icelandic, French, and Zulu.Less

Arguments as Relations

John Bowers

This book proposes a radically new approach to argument structure that has the potential to unify data from a wide range of different language types in terms of a simple and universal syntactic ... More

This book proposes a radically new approach to argument structure that has the potential to unify data from a wide range of different language types in terms of a simple and universal syntactic structure. In many ways, the proposed theory is the natural extension of three leading ideas in the literature: The minimalist approach to Case theory (particularly Noam Chomsky’s idea that Case is assigned under the Agree function relation); the idea of introducing arguments in specifiers of functional categories rather than in projections of lexical categories; and the neo-Davidsonian approach to argument structure represented in the work of Parsons and others. The book pulls together these strands in the literature and shapes them into a unified theory. These ideas, together with certain basic assumptions—notably the idea that the initial order of merge of the three basic argument categories of Agent, Theme, and Affectee is just the opposite of what has been almost universally assumed in the literature—lead to a fundamental rethinking of argument structure. The book argues that every argument is merged as the specifier of a particular type of light verb category and that these functional argument categories merge in bottom-to-top fashion in accordance with a fixed Universal Order of Merge. In the hierarchical structures that result from these operations, Affectee arguments will be highest, Theme arguments next highest, and Agent arguments lowest—exactly the opposite of the usual assumption.Less

Bilingual Competence and Bilingual Proficiency in Child Development

Norbert Francis

When two or more languages are part of a child’s world, we are presented with a rich opportunity to learn something about language in general and about how the mind works. This book examines the ... More

When two or more languages are part of a child’s world, we are presented with a rich opportunity to learn something about language in general and about how the mind works. This book examines the development of bilingual proficiency and the different kinds of competence that come together in making up its component parts. In particular, it explores problems of language ability when children use two languages for tasks related to schooling, especially in learning how to read and write. It considers both broader research issues and findings from an ongoing investigation of child bilingualism in an indigenous language-speaking community in Mexico. This special sociolinguistic context allows for a unique perspective on some of the central themes of bilingualism research today, including the distinction between competence and proficiency, modularity, and the Poverty of Stimulus problem. The book proposes that competence (knowledge) should be considered as an integral component of proficiency (ability) rather than something separate and apart, arguing that this approach allows for a more inclusive assessment of research findings from diverse fields of study. The bilingual indigenous language project illustrates how the concepts of modularity and the competence-proficiency distinction in particular might be applied to problems of language learning and literacy. Few investigations of indigenous language and culture approach bilingual research problems from a cognitive science perspective. By suggesting connections to broader cognitive and linguistic issues, this book points the way to further research along these lines.Less

Biological Foundations and Origin of Syntax

Derek Bickerton and Eörs Szathmáry (eds)

Syntax is arguably the most human-specific aspect of language. Despite the proto-linguistic capacities of some animals, syntax appears to be the last major evolutionary transition in humans that has ... More

Syntax is arguably the most human-specific aspect of language. Despite the proto-linguistic capacities of some animals, syntax appears to be the last major evolutionary transition in humans that has some genetic basis. Yet what are the elements to a scenario that can explain such a transition? In this book, experts from linguistics, neurology and neurobiology, cognitive psychology, ecology and evolutionary biology, and computer modeling address this question. The book follows through on a growing consensus among researchers that language can be profitably separated into a number of related and interacting but largely autonomous functions, each of which may have a distinguishable evolutionary history and neurological base. The chapters argue that syntax is such a function. The book describes the current state of research on syntax in different fields, with special emphasis on areas in which the findings of particular disciplines might shed light on problems faced by other disciplines. It defines areas where consensus has been established with regard to the nature, infrastructure, and evolution of the syntax of natural languages; summarizes and evaluates contrasting approaches in areas that remain controversial; and suggests lines for future research to resolve at least some of these disputed issues.Less

The Boundaries of Babel: The Brain and the Enigma of Impossible Languages

Andrea Moro

This book tells the story of an encounter between two cultures: Contemporary theoretical linguistics and the cognitive neurosciences. The study of language within a biological context has been ... More

This book tells the story of an encounter between two cultures: Contemporary theoretical linguistics and the cognitive neurosciences. The study of language within a biological context has been ongoing for more than fifty years. The development of neuroimaging technology offers new opportunities to enrich the “biolinguistic perspective” and extend it beyond an abstract framework for inquiry. As a theoretical linguist in the generative tradition and also a cognitive scientist schooled in the new imaging technology, the author is equipped to explore this. He examines what he calls the “hidden” revolution in contemporary science: The discovery that the number of possible grammars is not infinite and that their number is biologically limited. This radical but little-discussed change in the way we look at language, the author claims, will require us to rethink not just the fundamentals of linguistics and neurosciences but also our view of the human mind. He searches for neurobiological correlates of “the boundaries of Babel”—the constraints on the apparent chaotic variation in human languages—by using an original experimental design based on artificial languages. The author offers a critical overview of some of the fundamental results from linguistics over the last fifty years, in particular regarding syntax, then uses these essential aspects of language to examine two neuroimaging experiments in which he took part. He describes the two neuroimaging techniques used (positron emission topography and functional magnetic resonance imaging), but makes it clear that techniques and machines do not provide interesting data without a sound theoretical framework.Less

A Brief History of the Verb To Be

Andrea Moro

Beginning with the early works of Aristotle, the interpretation of the verb to be runs through Western linguistic thought like Ariadne's thread. As it unravels, it becomes intertwined with ... More

Beginning with the early works of Aristotle, the interpretation of the verb to be runs through Western linguistic thought like Ariadne's thread. As it unravels, it becomes intertwined with philosophy, metaphysics, logic, and even with mathematics—so much so that Bertrand Russell showed no hesitation in proclaiming that the verb to be was a disgrace to the human race. With the conviction that this verb penetrates modern linguistic thinking, creating scandal in its wake and, like a Trojan horse of linguistics, introducing disruptive elements that lead us to rethink radically the most basic structure of human language—the sentence—this book reconstructs this history. From classical Greece to the dueling masters of medieval logic through the revolutionary geniuses from the seventeenth century to the Enlightenment, and finally to the twentieth century—when linguistics became a driving force and model for neuroscience—the plot unfolds like a detective story, culminating in the discovery of a formula that solves the problem even as it raises new questions—about language, evolution, and the nature and structure of the human mind. The book isn't burdened with inaccessible formulas and always refers to the broader picture of mind and language. In this way it serves as an engaging introduction to a new field of cutting-edge research.Less

Building and Interpreting Possession Sentences

Neil Myler

A major question for linguistic theory concerns how the structure of sentences relates to their meaning. There is broad agreement in the field that there is some regularity in the way that lexical ... More

A major question for linguistic theory concerns how the structure of sentences relates to their meaning. There is broad agreement in the field that there is some regularity in the way that lexical semantics and syntax are related, so that thematic roles are predictably associated with particular syntactic positions. This book examines the syntax and semantics of possession sentences, which are infamous for appearing to diverge dramatically from this broadly regular pattern. On the one hand, possession sentences have too many meanings: in a given language, the construction used to express archetypal possessive meanings (such as personal ownership) is also often used to express other apparently unrelated notions (body parts, kinship relations, and many others). On the other hand, possession sentences have too many surface structures: languages differ markedly in the argument structures used to convey the same possessive meanings, with some employing a transitive verb HAVE, and others using a variety of constructions based around an intransitive verb BE. Examining and synthesizing ideas from the literature and drawing on data from many languages (including some understudied Quechua dialects), this book presents a novel way to understand the apparent irregularity of possession sentences while preserving existing explanations for the general cross-linguistic regularities we observe in argument structure.Less

Classical NEG Raising: An Essay on the Syntax of Negation

Chris Collins and Paul M. Postal

This book considers examples such as the one below on the interpretation where Nancy thinks that this course is not interesting: Nancy doesn't think this course is interesting. It argues that such ... More

This book considers examples such as the one below on the interpretation where Nancy thinks that this course is not interesting: Nancy doesn't think this course is interesting. It argues that such examples instantiate a kind of syntactic raising known as Classical NEG Raising (NR). This involves the raising of a NEG (negation) from the embedded clause to the matrix clause. The book develops three main arguments to support its claim. First, it shows that Classical NR obeys island constraints. Second, it documents that a syntactic raising analysis predicts both the grammaticality and particular properties of what it terms Horn clauses (named for Laurence Horn, who discovered them). Finally, it argues that the properties of certain parenthetical structures strongly support the syntactic character of Classical NR. The book also offers a detailed analysis of the main argument in the literature against a syntactic raising analysis (which it calls the Composed Quantifier Argument). It shows that the facts appealed to in this argument not only fail to conflict with their approach but actually support a syntactic view. The book also touches on a variety of related topics, including the syntax of negative polarity items, the status of sequential negation, and the scope of negative quantifiers.Less

Cognitive Pragmatics: The Mental Processes of Communication

Bruno G. Bara

This book, which offers a theory of human communication that is both formalized through logic and empirically validated through experimental data and clinical studies, argues that communication is a ... More

This book, which offers a theory of human communication that is both formalized through logic and empirically validated through experimental data and clinical studies, argues that communication is a cooperative activity in which two or more agents together, consciously and intentionally, construct the meaning of their interaction. In true communication (which the book distinguishes from the mere transmission of information), all the actors must share a set of mental states. The book takes a cognitive perspective, investigating communication not from the viewpoint of an external observer (as is the practice in linguistics and the philosophy of language) but from within the mind of the individual. It examines communicative interaction through the notion of behavior and dialogue games, which structure both the generation and the comprehension of the communication act (either language or gesture). The book describes both standard communication and nonstandard communication (which includes deception, irony, and “as-if” statements). Failures are analyzed in detail, with possible solutions explained. The book investigates communicative competence in both evolutionary and developmental terms, tracing its emergence from hominids to homo sapiens and defining the stages of its development in humans from birth to adulthood. It correlates this theory with the neurosciences, and explains the decay of communication that occurs both with different types of brain injury and with Alzheimer’s disease.Less

Concepts, Syntax, and Their Interface: The Theta System

Tanya Reinhart

Martin Everaert and Marijana Marelj (eds)

The present book introduces one of Tanya Reinhart's major contributions to linguistic theory, namely the Theta System, a theory of the interface between the system of concepts and the linguistic ... More

The present book introduces one of Tanya Reinhart's major contributions to linguistic theory, namely the Theta System, a theory of the interface between the system of concepts and the linguistic computational system. The core of the book – part Ia – is her seminal paper The Theta System: Syntactic Realization of Verbal Concepts, pre-published as Reinhart (2000). It is enriched with extensive annotations relating it to subsequent developments, and a summary of the approach based on Reinhart (2002). In part Ib Marijana Marelj's contribution provides an in-depth analysis of the role of accusative Case in the system. Chapter II by Julia Horvath and Tal Siloni evaluates the role of the lexicon versus the syntax in building the ‘thematic’ (vP) phase. They challenge syntacticocentric approaches to argument structure; develop an alternative, active-lexicon approach and diagnostics demonstrating that (certain) valence-changing operations apply before syntactic structure is available. Part III, by Marijana Marelj and Eric Reuland, addresses the nature of the Lexicon-Syntax parameter (Reinhart and Siloni 2005), which distinguishes two broad classes of languages. They show that this parameter can be reduced to whether or not a language has syntactic clitics, and to how valence reduction of a verb affects its Case properties.Less

Contemporary Views on Architecture and Representations in Phonology

Eric Raimy and Charles E. Cairns (eds)

The essays in this volume address foundational questions in phonology that cut across different schools of thought within the discipline. The theme of modularity runs through them all, however, and ... More

The essays in this volume address foundational questions in phonology that cut across different schools of thought within the discipline. The theme of modularity runs through them all, however, and these essays demonstrate the benefits of the modular approach to phonology, either investigating interactions among distinct modules or developing specific aspects of representation within a particular module. Although the contributors take divergent views on a range of issues, they agree on the importance of representations and questions of modularity in phonology. Their essays address the status of phonological features, syllable theory, metrical structure, the architecture of the phonological component, and interaction among components of phonology. In the early 1990s the rise of Optimality Theory—which suggested that pure computation would solve the problems of representations and modularity—eclipsed the centrality of these issues for phonology. This book offers a coherent view of phonology that is not based on Optimality Theory. The chapters demonstrate that computation and representation are inherently linked; they do not deny Optimality Theory, but attempt to move the field of phonology beyond it.Less

Contiguity Theory

Norvin Richards

Current Minimalist approaches to syntax claim that languages simply vary in the distribution of overt movement. Some languages have overt wh-movement, or EPP effects, or movement of the verb to T, ... More

Current Minimalist approaches to syntax claim that languages simply vary in the distribution of overt movement. Some languages have overt wh-movement, or EPP effects, or movement of the verb to T, for example, while others do not, and these are basic parameters of cross-linguistic difference, which cannot be made to follow from any other properties of the languages in question. This book offers a theory of the cross-linguistic distribution of overt movement. The central claim is that the construction of phonological representations begins during the syntactic derivation, and that overt movement is driven by universal phonological conditions. The conditions include one on the prosodic representations of syntactic relations like Agree and selection (Generalized Contiguity) and another on the relation between affixes and word-level metrical structure (Affix Support). The parameters differentiating languages are entirely a matter of prosody and morphology: languages differ in how their prosodic systems are arranged, in the number and nature of affixes appearing on the verb, and in the rules for word-internal stress placement. The resulting theory accounts for the distribution of wh-movement, head-movement of verbs and auxiliaries, and EPP-driven movement to the specifier of TP, in a number of languages. If the theory is correct, then a complete description of the phonology and morphology of a given language is also a complete description of its syntax.Less

Creating Language: Integrating Evolution, Acquisition, and Processing

Morten H. Christiansen and Nick Chater

Language is a hallmark of the human species; the flexibility and unbounded expressivity of our linguistic abilities is unique in the biological world. In this book, Morten Christiansen and Nick ... More

Language is a hallmark of the human species; the flexibility and unbounded expressivity of our linguistic abilities is unique in the biological world. In this book, Morten Christiansen and Nick Chater argue that to understand this astonishing phenomenon, we must consider how language is created: moment by moment, in the generation and understanding of individual utterances; year by year, as new language learners acquire language skills; and generation by generation, as languages change, split, and fuse through processes of cultural evolution. Christiansen and Chater propose a revolutionary new framework for understanding the evolution, acquisition, and processing of language, offering an integrated theory of how language creation is intertwined across these multiple timescales. Christiansen and Chater argue that mainstream generative approaches to language do not provide compelling accounts of language evolution, acquisition, and processing. Their own account draws on important developments from across the language sciences, including statistical natural language processing, learnability theory, computational modeling, and psycholinguistic experiments with children and adults. Christiansen and Chater also consider some of the major implications of their theoretical approach for our understanding of how language works, offering alternative accounts of specific aspects of language, including the structure of the vocabulary, the importance of experience in language processing, and the nature of recursive linguistic structure.Less

Distributed Morphology Today: Morphemes for Morris Halle

Ora Matushansky and Alec Marantz (eds)

This book offers a snapshot of current research in Distributed Morphology, highlighting the lasting influence of Morris Halle, a pioneer in generative linguistics. Distributed Morphology, which ... More

This book offers a snapshot of current research in Distributed Morphology, highlighting the lasting influence of Morris Halle, a pioneer in generative linguistics. Distributed Morphology, which integrates the morphological with the syntactic, originated in Halle's work. This book, written to mark his 90th birthday, makes an original theoretical contribution to the field and emphasizes Halle's foundational contributions to the study of morphology. The chapters primarily focus on the issues of locality, exploring the tight connection of morphology to phonology, syntax, and semantics that lies at the core of Distributed Morphology. The nature of phases, the notion of a morpho-syntactic feature, allomorphy and exponence, the synthetic/analytic alternation, stress assignment, and syntactic agreement are all shown to link to more than one grammatical module. Animated discussion with students has been central to Halle's research, and the development of Distributed Morphology has been shaped and continued by his students, many of whom have contributed to this volume. Halle's support, advice, and enthusiasm encouraged the research exemplified here.Less

Distributed Reduplication

John Frampton

A convincing account of reduplicative phenomena has been a longstanding problem for rule-based theories of morphophonology. Many scholars believe that derivational phonology is incapable in principle ... More

A convincing account of reduplicative phenomena has been a longstanding problem for rule-based theories of morphophonology. Many scholars believe that derivational phonology is incapable in principle of analyzing reduplication. The author of this book demonstrates the adequacy of rule-based theories by providing a general account within that framework and illustrating his proposal with extensive examples of widely varying reduplication schemes from many languages. His analysis is based on new proposals about the structure of autosegmental representations. Although the author offers many new ideas about the computations that are put to use in reduplicative phonology, some fairly radical, his intent is conservative: to provide evidence that the model of the phonological computation developed by Chomsky and Halle in 1968 is fundamentally correct—that surface forms are produced by the successive modification of underlying forms. His theory accounts for the surface properties of reduplicative morphemes by operations that are distributed at various points in the morphophonology rather than by a single operation applied at a single point. Lexical insertion, prosodic adjustment, and copying can each make a contribution to the output at different points in the computation of surface form. The author discusses particular reduplicative processes in many languages as he develops his general theory. The final chapter provides an extensive sequence of detailed case studies. Appendixes offer additional material on the No Crossing Constraint, the autosegmental structure of reduplicative representations, linearization, and concatenative versus nonconcatenative morphology.Less

Edge-Based Clausal Syntax: A Study of (Mostly) English Object Structure

Paul M. Postal

This book rejects the notion that an English phrase of the form verb + determiner phrase [V + DP] invariably involves a grammatical relation properly characterized as a direct object. It argues ... More

This book rejects the notion that an English phrase of the form verb + determiner phrase [V + DP] invariably involves a grammatical relation properly characterized as a direct object. It argues instead that at least three distinct relations occur in such a structure. The different syntactic properties of these three kinds of objects are shown by how they behave in passives, middles, -able forms, tough movement, wh-movement, Heavy NP Shift, Ride Node Raising, re-prefixation, and many other tests. This proposal renders the book’s position sharply different from that of Noam Chomsky, who defined a direct object structurally as noun phrase, verb phrase [NP, VP], and with the traditional linguistics text’s definition of the direct object as the DP sister of V. According to the book’s framework, sentence structures are complex graph structures built on nodes (vertices) and edges (arcs). The node that heads a particular edge represents a constituent which bears the grammatical relation named by the edge label to its tail node. This approach allows two DPs that have very different grammatical properties to occupy what looks like identical structural positions. The contrasting behaviors of direct objects, which at first seem anomalous—even grammatically chaotic—emerge in Postal’s account as nonanomalous, as symptoms of hitherto ungrasped structural regularity.Less

Foundational Issues in Linguistic Theory: Essays in Honor of Jean-Roger Vergnaud

Robert Freidin, Carlos P. Otero, and Maria Luisa Zubizarreta (eds)

Jean-Roger Vergnaud’s work on the foundational issues in linguistics has proved influential over the past three decades. At MIT in 1974, Vergnaud (now holder of the Andrew W. Mellon Professorship in ... More

Jean-Roger Vergnaud’s work on the foundational issues in linguistics has proved influential over the past three decades. At MIT in 1974, Vergnaud (now holder of the Andrew W. Mellon Professorship in Humanities at the University of Southern California) made a proposal in his PhD thesis that has since become, in somewhat modified form, the standard analysis for the derivation of relative clauses. He later integrated the proposal within a broader theory of movement and abstract case. These topics have remained central to theoretical linguistics. This book attests to the importance of Vergnaud’s contributions to linguistics. The chapters first discuss issues in syntax, documenting important breakthroughs in the development of the principles and parameters framework and including a famous letter (unpublished until recently) from Vergnaud to Noam Chomsky and Howard Lasnik commenting on the first draft of their 1977 paper “Filters and Controls.” Vergnaud’s writings on phonology (which, the editors write, “take a definite syntactic turn”) have also been influential, and the book concludes with two contributions to that field. The chapters, rewarding from both theoretical and empirical perspectives, not only offer insight into Vergnaud’s impact on the field but also describe current work on the issues he introduced into the scholarly debate.Less

Grammatical Theory and Bilingual Codeswitching

Jeff MacSwan (ed.)

Codeswitching is the alternate use of two or more languages among bilingual interlocutors. It is distinct from borrowing, which involves the phonological and morphological integration of a word from ... More

Codeswitching is the alternate use of two or more languages among bilingual interlocutors. It is distinct from borrowing, which involves the phonological and morphological integration of a word from one language into another. Codeswitching entails the mixing of phonologically distinctive elements into a single utterance: Mi hermano bought some ice cream. This volume examines the grammatical properties of languages mixed in this way, focusing on cases of language mixing within a sentence. It considers the grammar of codeswitching from a variety of perspectives, offering a collection of theoretically significant work by the leading researchers in the field. Each contribution investigates a particular grammatical phenomenon as it relates to bilingual codeswitching data, mostly from a Minimalist perspective. Data analyzed include codeswitching in Spanish-English, Korean-English, German-Spanish, Hindi-English, and Amerindian languages. Contributors are Shoba Bandi-Rao, Rakesh M. Bhatt, Sonia Colina, Marcel den Dikken, Anna Maria Di Sciullo, Daniel L. Finer, Kay E. González-Vilbazo, Sílvia Milian Hita, Jeff MacSwan, Pieter Muysken, Monica Moro Quintanilla, Erin O’Rourke, Ana Teresa Pérez-Leroux, Edward P. Stabler Jr., Gretchen Sunderman, and Almeida Jacqueline Toribio.Less

Impossible Languages

Andrea Moro

Understanding the nature and the structure of human language coincides with capturing the constraints which make a conceivable language possible or, equivalently, with discovering whether there can ... More

Understanding the nature and the structure of human language coincides with capturing the constraints which make a conceivable language possible or, equivalently, with discovering whether there can be any impossible languages at all. This book explores these related issues, paralleling the effort of a biologist who attempts at describing the class of impossible animals. In biology, one can appeal for example to physical laws of nature (such as entropy or gravity) but when it comes to language the path becomes intricate and difficult for the physical laws cannot be exploited. In linguistics, in fact, there are two distinct empirical domains to explore: on the one hand, the formal domain of syntax, where different languages are compared trying to understand how much they can differ; on the other, the neurobiological domain, where the flow of information through the complex neural networks and the electric code exploited by neurons is uncovered and measured. By referring to the most advanced experiments in Neurolinguistics the book in fact offers an updated descriptions of modern linguistics and allows the reader to formulate new and surprising questions. Moreover, since syntax - the capacity to generate novel structures (sentences) by recombining a finite set of elements (words) - is the fingerprint of all and only human languages this books ultimately deals with the fundamental questions which characterize the search for our origins.Less