Nicholas Ostler, Empires of the World (2005). A history of the world through the history of its languages.
Maryanne Wolf, Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain (2007). Last-minute addition: another excellent book on the science of reading.
Have You Read?
More by Steven Pinker
WORDS AND RULES:
THE INGREDIENTS OF LANGUAGE
How does language work, and how do we learn to speak? Why do languages change over time, and why do they have so many quirks and irregularities? In this original and totally entertaining book, written in the same engaging style that illuminated his bestselling classics, The Language Instinct and How the Mind Works, Steven Pinker explores the profound mysteries of language.
By picking a deceptively simple phenomenon—regular and irregular verbs—Pinker connects an astonishing array of topics in the sciences and the humanities: the history of languages; the theories of Noam Chomsky and his critics; the attempts to create language using computer simulations of neural networks; what there is to learn from children’s grammatical “mistakes”; the latest techniques in identifying genes and imaging the brain; and major ideas in the history of Western philosophy. He makes sense of all 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. His theory extends beyond language and offers insight in the very nature of the human mind.
“A gem.”
—Mark Aronoff, New York Times Book Review
“Crisp prose and neat analogies,…required reading for anyone interested in cognition and language.”
—Publishers Weekly
Notes to P.S. Material
Darwin yesterday and today: Ridley 2004.
Chomsky yesterday and today: Barsky 1997; Chomsky & Peck 1987; Collier & Horowitz 2004; McGilvray 2005.
Chomsky et al. vs. Pinker and Jackendoff: Hauser, Chomsky, & Fitch 2002; Jackendoff & Pinker 2005; Pinker & Jackendoff 2005; Fitch, Hauser, & Chomsky 2005.
Foundations of Language: Jackendoff 2002.
Pirahã: Everett 2005. Pirahã spirits: http://web.archive.org/web/20001121191700/amazonling.linguist.pitt.edu/people.html. Skepticism on Pirahã claims: Commentaries in Everett 2005, Liberman 2006, and Nevins, Pesetsky, & Rodrigues 2007.
Ebonics: McWhorter 1999; Pullum 1999.
Nicaraguan Sign Language: Senghas & Coppola 2001; Senghas, Kita, & Özy¨rek 2004.
Do parents matter? Harris 1998, 2006; Pinker 2002, chapter 19.
Poverty of the input: Ritter 2002; Pullum & Scholz 2002.
Williams syndrome: Eckert et al. 2006.
FOXP2 gene: Enard et al. 2002; Shu et al. 2005; Marcus & Fisher 2003.
K family: Vargha-Khadem et al. 1998; Bishop 2002.
Grammatical Specific Language Impairment: van der Lely 2005.
Heritability of language: Stromswold 2001.
Neo-Whorfianism: Gentner & Goldin-Meadow 2003.
Minimalism: Chomsky 1995. Problems with minimalism: Johnson & Lappin 1997; Pinker & Jackendoff 2005; Jackendoff & Pinker 2005. Simpler syntax: Bresnan 1982, Culicover, & Jackendoff 2005.
How children learn the meanings of words: Bloom 1999. Why word learning might be special: Pinker & Jackendoff 2005.
Reading wars: McGuinness 1997; Anderson 2000.
Pirahã again: Everett 2005, which includes several commentaries; Liberman 2006; Nevins, Pesetsky, & Rodrigues 2007.
Pirahã recursion: Nevins, Pesetsky, & Rodrigues 2007; See also Everett 2007.
Universal Grammar, pro and con: Grain & Thornton 1998; Levinson 2003; Baker 2001; Tomasello 2003. For an archive of language universals, see http://ling.uni-konstanz.de/pages/proj/sprachbau.htm.
Biostatistics and language diversity: Dunn et al. 2005; McMahon & McMahon 2003; McMahon & McMahon 2005; Pennisi 2004a.
Indo-Europeans: Balter 2004.
Genes and languages: Cavalli-Sforza 2000. Skeptical linguists: Pennisi 2004a; McMahon & McMahon 2005; Sims-Williams 1998.
Clicks in Proto-World: Wade 2004; Pennisi 2004b.
Endangered languages: Wuethrich 2000.
How babies talk: Golinkoff & Hirsh-Pasek 2000.
Early advantage in language learning: Birdsong 1999; Neville & Bavelier 2000; Petitto & Dunbar in press; Senghas & Coppola 2001. Accent: Flege 1999.
Bilingual brains: Kim 1997; Petitto & Dunbar in press; Neville & Bavelier 2000.
Critical period or steady decline: Birdsong 2005.
Adults can’t learn a first language: Mayberry 1993.
Bilingual education, American-style: Garvin 1998; Rossell 2003; Rossell & Baker 1996.
Your brain on language: Dronkers, Pinker, & Damasio 1999; Gazzaniga 2004; Poeppel & Hickok 2004.
Brain on fire: Sahin, Pinker, & Halgren 2006.
Making sense of the brain on language: Hagoort 2005; Hickok & Poeppel 2004.
Wiring the brain: Marcus 2002.
Language evolution: Christiansen & Kirby 2003; Kenneally 2007. Language and the cognitive niche: Pinker 2003; The search for the origins of language: Kenneally 2007.
Genes and language: The SLI Consortium 2002; Dale et al. 1998; Stromswold 2001; Marcus & Fisher 2003.
Natural selection of human genes: Clark et al. 2003; Enard et al. 2002; Sabeti et al. 2006.
Modeling language evolution: Nowak & Komarova 2001.
Kanzi: Savage-Rumbaugh et al. 1993. Evaluating animal language claims: Anderson 2004.
Parrot: Pepperberg 1999. Starlings: Centner et al. 2006, though see also http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003076.htmland http://linguistiist.org/issues/17/17-1528.html. Dolphins: see Hauser, Chomsky, & Fitch 2002. Dogs: Hare et al. 2002.
Chomsky et al. vs. Pinker and Jackendoff: Hauser, Chomsky, & Fitch 2002; Jackendoff & Pinker 2005; Pinker & Jackendoff 2005; Fitch, Hauser, & Chomsky 2005.
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