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
Results 1-5 of 12
... speech com- munity have developed essentially the same language . This fact can be explained only on the assumption that these individuals employ highly restrictive principles that guide the construction of grammar . By performing ...
... speech , like color vision or walking , is a paradigm of engi- neering excellence - a technology that works so well that the user takes its outcome for granted , unaware of the complicated machinery hidden behind the panels . Behind ...
... speech uses the full inventory of grammatical paraphernalia that computer scientists struggle unsuccessfully to duplicate ( relative clauses , complement structures , clause subordination , and so on ) , not to mention some fairly ...
... speech than in middle - class speech . The highest percentage of ungrammatical sen- tences was found in the proceedings of learned academic conferences . The ubiquity of complex language among human beings is a gripping discovery and ...
... speech : Me capé buy , me check make . Building - high place - wall pat - time - nowtime - an ' den — a new tempecha eri time show you . Good , dis one . Kaukau any - kin ' dis one . Pilipine islan ' no good . No mo money . From the ...
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 |