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Editor for this issue: Marisa Ferrara <marisalinguistlist.org>
oup-usa.org>Title: Knowledge and Learning in Natural Language Publication Year: 2002 Publisher: Oxford University Press http://www.oup-usa.org/ Book URL: http://www.oup-usa.org/isbn/0199254141.html Author: Charles Yang, Yale University Hardback: ISBN: 0199254141, Pages: 220 pp, Price: $ 72.00 Paperback: ISBN: 019925415X, Pages: 220 pp, Price: $ 21.95 Abstract: "According to Yang, many of today's irregular verbs are historical survivors of what were once systematic rules ... By neglecting this historical evidence Pinker mistakenly supposes that the irregular cases have to be memorized on a case-by-case basis, whereas according to Yang what has to be memorized is which rule applies. Yang strengthens his argument by bringing in evidence from other languages. Yang argues that these irregular patterns are rule-based and that the child's task is not to memorize plurals on a word-by-word basis, but to figure out which rule applies, to which set the noun belongs. If Yang is right, and I think he is, then Pinker's irregulars are not illustrations of the words-and-rules thesis, but the less-general-rules-and-more-general-rules thesis." --New York Review of Books Lingfield(s): Language Acquisition Written In: English (Language Code: ENG)Mail to author|Respond to list|Read more issues|LINGUIST home page|Top of issue