Words And Rules: The Ingredients Of Language (Science Masters Series)
Language: English
Published by Basic Books, 1999
Series: Book 14 of 14 - Science Masters
- Hardcover
- Used
Seller: Gulf Coast Books, Cypress, TX, U.S.A.Gulf Coast Books
AbeBooks seller since June 27, 2017
Condition: Used - Good
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Add to basketSeller Inventory # 0465072690-3-33832863
- Title
- Words And Rules: The Ingredients Of Language (Science Masters Series)
- Author
- Pinker, Steven
- Publisher
- Basic Books
- Publication year
- 1999
- Condition
- Good
- Binding
- hardcover
- Language
- English
- ISBN 10
- 0465072690
- ISBN 13
- 9780465072699
- Item weight
- 24 ounces
- Dimensions
- 6x1x9
- Series
- Book 14 of 14: Science Masters
"Synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
Review
Do we deduce rules from the world around us and behave rationally? Or do we free-associate, discovering the world through experience and creative analogy? The obvious answer is "both". But proof of the obvious answer has long eluded philosophers of mind. Pinker, though, believes he has found it--in the English past tense.
English verbs come in two flavours. Regular verbs have past tenses that look like the present-tense verb with "-ed" on the end--today I walk, yesterday I walked, etc. The second kind of English verb is irregular. Irregular past tenses follow no rules--today I buy, but yesterday I bought; today I hold, yesterday I held.
The way children distinguish between these different sorts of verbs as they learn to talk suggests they learn both by rule and by association. Proving this is Pinker's task--and it's a bravura performance.
It takes nothing away from that other recent lit-hit, Bill Bryson's Mother Tongue, to say that Pinker's book achieves an altogether deeper level of profundity. It says much for Pinker that in doing so, he can still match Bryson for wit and readability. --Simon Ings
"About the title" may belong to another edition of this title.
Gulf Coast Books
Cypress, TX, U.S.A.
AbeBooks seller since June 27, 2017
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