LINGUIST List 12.2661

Wed Oct 24 2001

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

Editor for this issue: Karen Milligan <karenlinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Suzette Haden Elgin, 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