12.2661, Media: The Atoms of Language/Article/Books & Culture

[LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List:  Vol-12-2661. Wed Oct 24 2001. ISSN: 1068-4875.

Subject: 12.2661, Media: The Atoms of Language/Article/Books & Culture

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1)
Date:  Wed, 24 Oct 2001 13:24:39 -0600
From:  ocls at madisoncounty.net (Suzette Haden Elgin)
Subject:  Media: Review of Baker's _The Atoms of Language_

-------------------------------- Message 1 -------------------------------

Date:  Wed, 24 Oct 2001 13:24:39 -0600
From:  ocls at madisoncounty.net (Suzette Haden Elgin)
Subject:  Media: Review of Baker's _The Atoms of Language_

October 24, 2001

Dear Linguist List,

The November/December 2001 issue of _Books & Culture_, pp. 18-19, has a
review by John H. McWhorter of Mark C. Baker's _The Atoms of Language: The
Mind's Hidden Rules of Grammar_ (from Basic Books 2001). The review offers
examples from a number of languages, discusses the Principles & Parameters
model, and raises the question of why, precisely, such things should matter
either to the general public or to linguists. McWhorter offers a Gricean
comment to the effect that Baker "is not consistently successful in
ushering the lay reader into concepts that can be initially rather
obscure," but gives the book as a whole at least an A-minus.

Suzette Haden Elgin

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