The Language Instinct: How The Mind Creates LanguageHarper Collins, 2010 M12 14 - 576 pages "A brilliant, witty, and altogether satisfying book." — New York Times Book Review The classic work on the development of human language by the world’s leading expert on language and the mind In The Language Instinct, the world's expert on language and mind lucidly explains everything you always wanted to know about language: how it works, how children learn it, how it changes, how the brain computes it, and how it evolved. With deft use of examples of humor and wordplay, Steven Pinker weaves our vast knowledge of language into a compelling story: language is a human instinct, wired into our brains by evolution. The Language Instinct received the William James Book Prize from the American Psychological Association and the Public Interest Award from the Linguistics Society of America. This edition includes an update on advances in the science of language since The Language Instinct was first published. |
From inside the book
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... phrases , and phrases into even bigger phrases , and give each one a mental label , like " subject noun phrase " or " verb phrase . " The real rule for forming questions does not look for the first occurrence of the auxiliary word as ...
... noun phrase , is the one that is moved : [ a unicorn that is eating a flower ] is in the garden . → is [ a unicorn that is eating a flower ] in the garden ? Chomsky reasoned that if the logic of language is wired into chil- dren , then ...
... noun phrase . But Crain and Nakayama anticipated the objection . Mixed into their list were commands like " Ask Jabba if it is raining in this picture . " The it of the sentence , of course , does not refer to anything ; it is a dummy ...
Contents
1 | |
12 | |
44 | |
How Language Works | 74 |
Words Words Words | 119 |
The Sounds of Silence | 153 |
Talking Heads | 190 |
The Tower of Babel | 231 |
Language Organs and Grammar Genes | 302 |
The Big Bang | 340 |
The Language Mavens | 382 |
Mind Design | 419 |
Notes | 449 |
References | 469 |
Glossary | 503 |
Index | 517 |