Denis Bouchard looks at how the human brain got the capacity for language and how language evolved. He argues that language is a system of signs and considers how these elements first came together in the brain. His account of language origins offers insights into language and to constructions that have defied decades of linguistic analysis.

• Part I The emergence of language


• 1: Scenarios for the emergence of language


• Part II What is language that it could have evolved?


• 2: Language facts and theory


• 3: The Sign Theory of Language


• Part III The Origin of language from neurons to signs


• 4: The neurogenetic factors: Offline Brain Systems


• 5: The Emergence of Linguistic Signs


• 6: Self-organizing constraints due to building materials


• 7: The protolanguage hypothesis


• Part IV Explaining the properties of language


• 8: Combinatorial signs and Universal Grammar


• 9: How signs account for some complex properties of language


• 10: In the beginning was the sign


• Bibliography


• Index

Denis Bouchard is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Quebec in Montreal. His publications include The Semantics of Syntax (University of Chicago Press, 1995), On the Content of Empty Categories (Foris Publications, 1984), and Adjectives, Number and Interfaces (Elsevier Science, 2002).