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Words And Rules Paperback – 1 December 1999

by Steven Pinker (Author)
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 176 ratings
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How does language work? How do children learn their mother tongue? Why do languages change over time, making Chaucer's English almost incomprehensible? Steven Pinker explains the profound mysteries of language by picking a deceptively simple single phenomenon and examining it from every angle. That phenomenon - the existence of regular and irregular verbs - connects an astonishing array of topics in the sciences and humanities: the history of languages; the illuminating errors of children as they begin to speak; the sources of the major themes in the history of Western philosophy; the latest techniques in identifying genes and imaging the living brain. Pinker makes sense of all of this with the help of a single, powerful idea: that language comprises a mental dictionary of memorized words and a mental grammar of creative rules.
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Previous page
  1. Part of series
    Science Masters
  2. Print length
    359 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Publisher
    W&N
  5. Publication date
    1 December 1999
  6. Dimensions
    16.5 x 3.5 x 24.2 cm
  7. ISBN-10
    0965437469
  8. ISBN-13
    978-0297816478
  9. See all details
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Product description

Book Description

One of the world's scientific superstars presents a brilliantly illuminating, entertaining and cutting-edge account of how language actually works

About the Author

Steven Pinker is Director of the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at the Massachusetts Institute of the Technology.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ 0297816470
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ W&N; 1st edition (1 December 1999)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 359 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0965437469
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0297816478
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 16.5 x 3.5 x 24.2 cm
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 176 ratings

About the author

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Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker

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Steven Pinker is one of the world's leading authorities on language and the mind. His popular and highly praised books include The Stuff of Thought, The Blank Slate, Words and Rules, How the Mind Works, and The Language Instinct. The recipient of several major awards for his teaching, books, and scientific research, Pinker is Harvard College Professor and Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. He also writes frequently for The New York Times, Time, The New Republic, and other magazines.

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4.5 out of 5 stars
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Top review from Australia

John M. Ford
5.0 out of 5 stars The Fruit Flies of Language
Reviewed in Australia on 24 September 2014
Psychologist, linguist, and well-known author Steven Pinker illustrates the processes of human language through an extended discussion of regular and irregular verbs. He skillfully uses our grade-school struggles with the rules and exceptions of English vocabulary to explore the larger realm of human language competence. "Like fruit flies, regular and irregular verbs are small and easy to breed, and they contain, in easily visible form, the machinery that powers larger phenomena in all their glorious complexity."

Pinker's book explores in great detail the two different systems of the brain that produce language. One is regular and rule-like and produces patterns that range from the regular forms of some verbs to the grammatical and organizational regularities of larger chunks of language. The other is idiosyncratic and irregular and stores pieces of our linguistic competence that frustrate linguists and second-graders alike. Our working language is shaped by the interplay between these systems. They both leave their traces in the historical changes in language, similarities between different languages, the creative mistakes children and adults make while learning language, and in the way we invent and reinvent new words.

This book is recommended to anyone who wants to understand how our mind enables us to use language. Don't worry about being trapped into a narrow dissection of verbs--the book simply uses them as an increasingly-familiar theme to explore larger language issues. And don't shrink from an imagined tangle of technical terminology. Pinker's use of language is as deft as his grasp of it. His book is an enjoyable, as well as an informative read.
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Sidney Shaw
5.0 out of 5 stars Perfect.
Reviewed in Mexico on 28 June 2020
Verified Purchase
Came in without printing mistakes and exactly as advertised.
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Marcus
5.0 out of 5 stars Fun with irregular verbs (but caveats on the Kindle)
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 1 November 2018
Verified Purchase
The book:

Most of Pinker's books are pop-non-fiction. This is different. Pinker's day job is investigating regular and irregular verbs and nouns. Why is the plural of 'housewife' housewives, but the plural of 'lowlife' is lowlifes? Why does 'rats infested' sound wrong but 'mice infested' is OK? Sounds specialised, but from the deepest possible analysis of this tiny facet of grammar, Steven Pinker has uncovered facts about our brains and minds where hordes of introspecting philosophers have failed.

Don't expect to skim read this book and enjoy it, but if you enter into its arguments it will reward you.

The Kindle version:

The text was auto-generated by an OCR assisted by a spell-checker. It did a pretty good job of the prose sections, but this book has numerous examples of regular endings on irregular words and vice versa. The spell checker has tipped these into nearby but unrelated words, resulting in nonsense. It can be quite a challenge to work out what Pinker actually wrote. Moreover, every instance of "page XXX" has been replaced with a hyperlink to that page. Makes sense when it is a link, but when it is just an example from someone else's book, it is bizarre.

If you know these issues and are prepared to put in a bit of mental effort, the Kindle version is cheaper and more convenient. But be aware before you buy.
4 people found this helpful
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John M. Ford
5.0 out of 5 stars The Fruit Flies of Language
Reviewed in the United States on 9 August 2010
Verified Purchase
Psychologist, linguist, and well-known author Steven Pinker illustrates the processes of human language through an extended discussion of regular and irregular verbs. He skillfully uses our grade-school struggles with the rules and exceptions of English vocabulary to explore the larger realm of human language competence. "Like fruit flies, regular and irregular verbs are small and easy to breed, and they contain, in easily visible form, the machinery that powers larger phenomena in all their glorious complexity."

Pinker's book explores in great detail the two different systems of the brain that produce language. One is regular and rule-like and produces patterns that range from the regular forms of some verbs to the grammatical and organizational regularities of larger chunks of language. The other is idiosyncratic and irregular and stores pieces of our linguistic competence that frustrate linguists and second-graders alike. Our working language is shaped by the interplay between these systems. They both leave their traces in the historical changes in language, similarities between different languages, the creative mistakes children and adults make while learning language, and in the way we invent and reinvent new words.

This book is recommended to anyone who wants to understand how our mind enables us to use language. Don't worry about being trapped into a narrow dissection of verbs--the book simply uses them as an increasingly-familiar theme to explore larger language issues. And don't shrink from an imagined tangle of technical terminology. Pinker's use of language is as deft as his grasp of it. His book is an enjoyable, as well as an informative read.
10 people found this helpful
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shorebird
5.0 out of 5 stars 不規則動詞はこんなに面白い．
Reviewed in Japan on 12 August 2003
Verified Purchase
スティーブンピンカーの快作，今回は言語学者の領分に戻って規則動詞と不規則動詞の話．ミクロの面白い話がいろいろつながって人間の進化的な理解につながっている．しかしこの本の真骨頂は規則不規則のオタク話だろう，脱帽のおもしろさ．タコの複数形の話は笑える．
7 people found this helpful
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RR Waller
5.0 out of 5 stars Pinker's Words and Rules
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 17 August 2011
Verified Purchase
Stephen Pinker is one of the clearest and interesting modern writers on language; he is also an excellent speaker who, because of his great depth of knowledge of his own subject and his obvious enthusiasm for it, is able to communicate that to his listeners. As a great user of language himself, he is an excellent advocate for its clearer use.
He explains the complexities of Chomsky's linguistic ideas with its deep structures and transformational grammar in ways which make them more understandable to the "everyday" reader before explaining more modern approaches based in Chomsky's ideas.
In this more scholarly and somewhat drier text (after the "Language Instinct"), he deals with words and rules, the content and method, in ways which make this a fascinating insight into how humans developed and use language.
One person found this helpful
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