New York, NY, Estrados Unidos : Picador, c2005.

358 p. : il. ; 24 cm.

Introduction. -- 1. A castle in the air. -- 2. Perpetual motion. -- 3. The forces of destruction. -- 4. A reef of dead metaphors. -- 5. The forces of creation. -- 6. Craving for order. -- 7. The unfolding of language. -- Epilogue. -- Appendix A: Flipping categories. -- Appendix B: Laryngeals again?. -- Appendix C: The devil in the detail. -- Appendix D: The cook's counterpoint. -- Appendix E: The Turkish mirror. -- Notes. -- Bibliography. -- Glossary. -- Acknowledgments. -- Credits. -- Index. --

Tomado de la cubierta: "Language is mankind's greatest invention-except, of course, that it was never invented." So begins linguist Guy Deutscher's enthralling investigation into the genesis and evolution of language. If we started off with rudimentary utterances on the level of "man throw spear," how did we end up with sophisticated grammars, enormous vocabularies, and intricately nuanced degrees of meaning, and such elaborate single-word constructions as the Turkish sehirlilestiremediklerimizdensiniz ("you are one of those whom we couldn't turn into a town dweller")? Drawing on recent groundbreaking discoveries in modern linguistics, Deutscher exposes the intimately entwined forces of creation and destruction at work in human communication, showing how these processes are continuously generating new words, new structures, and new meanings. As entertaining as it is erudite, The Unfolding of Language moves nimbly from ancient Babylonian to American idiom, from the central role of metaphor to the intricacy of the Semitic verb, to explain the genius behind a uniquely human faculty."

9780805080124

Incluye notas y bibliografía (p. 306-340)