Words and Rules - Steven Pinker

Following his great success with the Language Instinct, Stephen Pinker adds to the range of books about language aimed at a general, non-expert audience. But there remains much in this book of interest even to those who have studied language-related subjects. The books is a broad overview of a number of fields within linguistics, centred around one particular problem, namely the irregular verbs of English: these are mainly of the type where the past tense is formed with the regular -ed or -en suffix, but there is a wide range of groups which he enumerates, describes and sets out to provide ... more

I preferred The Language Instinct to Words and Rules, because Words and Rules is a little more technical, and goes into slightly more detail about past tenses of verbs that I really wanted to know. However, the subject is interesting and he has a very accessible writing style, as well as an obvious enthusiasm for his subject. The main premise of the book is about how we learn language. Pinker holds that we learn partly by imitation, but also that we try to (unconsciously) derive rules from what we hear - e.g. if you always hear plurals with an 's' at the end, you might try out plurals like ... more