Words and Rules: The Ingredients of Language

Steven Pinker's Words and Rules is a complex look at how the human mind interprets words as both individual items and parts of a whole amidst the infinite wonders of human language. While the book concentrates on the English-speaking world, Pinker does take a few detours into language history, including the evolution and construction of German, French, and Turkish. These bits from the past can inform how certain word-constructions came to be in the present. While some of the writing tends to get repetitive after a while, Pinker tries to get into all the nooks and crannies of the regularities and irregularities of how language is constructed and spoken. This book sits nicely at the crossroads of psychology, neuroscience, and linguistics. show more I wouldn't say this is a casual read, but language nerds may find some good nuggets here. show less

Pinker takes an in-depth look at English irregular verbs as a starting point to explore how our linguistic abilities are made up of words and rules. He uses evidence from the way children acquire regular and irregular forms, the way irregularities work in other languages from German to French to Arabic to Chinese, and the language problems of people with neurological dam, age to generalise his approach to the way our minds work in general, not just with regard to language.

Fascinating, if a little heavy going in places. I don't know enough to be able to judge whether he's right or where his approach is open to informed criticism, but it certainly seems convincing.

The edition I am currently reading has a hideous '90s purple and orange cover--so that's a downside.

I've found this to be the most philosophical of the linguistics books I've been hoarding lately . . . a good thing so far. Will update when I have the stamina to finish. Since it's not a novel, I've been reading chapters of this, going back and forth to later works . . . a quite enjoyable way to take it all in. The part on causation has blown my mind thus far. First chapter sort of boring.

I love this book.

This book was highly recommended by a friend after a discussion that touched on linguistics, and I don't think that one could ask for a better popular introduction to the field. Pinker is one of the great minds of our age, and he writes in a very engaging way about the basis of language. We live in a golden age of popular books for linguistics, with Pinker and John McWhorter writing several books (Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue, etc) in the field and great blogs like Language Log addressing both scholarly and popular items as well.

This book sparked my interest in the area and taught me so much about why we use language the way that we do. I was even able to explain to some of my Arab co-workers why they say some of the show more things that they do. I cannot recommend this book highly enough to anyone who has a curious mind. Even if you don't think that you could be interested in linguistics, after reading this, you very well might be. show less

An interesting history of language. Pinker generally writes in a very engaging way, if at times the technical details.obscure what he is trying to say.,

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 show more language comprises a mental dictionary of memorized words and a mental grammar of creative rules. show less

How does language work? How do children learn their mother tongue? Why do languages change over time? Why do languages have so many quirks and irregularities? Where in the brain does language reside?
Steven Pinker explains the profound mysteries of language through the existence of regular and irregular verbs -- a phenomenon which connects an astonishing array of topics in the sciences and humanities. He argues that language comprises a mental dictionary of memorized words and a mental grammar of creative rules. The idea extends beyond language and offers insights into the very nature of the human mind. Words and Rules is a sparkling, eye-opening and utterly original book by one of the world's leading cognitive scientists.