Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-nwzlb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T14:04:31.417Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Biology and language: a response to Everett (2005)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2006

STEPHEN R. ANDERSON
Affiliation:
Yale University
DAVID W. LIGHTFOOT
Affiliation:
National Science Foundation

Abstract

In a recent review article in this journal, Everett (2005) finds our book Anderson & Lightfoot (2002) (as well as Givón 2002) seriously lacking and unpersuasive in the case it attempts to make for the importance of an understanding of the human language faculty as an aspect of our species' biology. Negative reviews are of course a feature of academic life, but Everett's piece exhibits enough misconceptions and misrepresentations, both of our work and of the nature of biology, to warrant a response.

Type
Notes and Discussion
Copyright
2006 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

This material is based upon work supported while Lightfoot was serving at the National Science Foundation. Any opinion and conclusions are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.