Search results – LINGUIST

91 matches.
Item #DateTimeRecs Subject
00005591/02/1912:51702.43 Cognitive Linguistics
00005991/02/2312:511442.47 Conferences
00011991/04/0112:514942.108 Conferences: SAMLA, Southeast Asian, SPP
00034991/07/2319:1397Conference and Job Information
00046991/09/0723:59296Calls for Papers /2-478
00052391/09/1715:511202.526 Conferences
00057591/09/2718:102332.578 Of Mice and Mouses
00070591/10/2514:561502.708 FYI
00098092/01/3112:572763.89 UWM Linguistics Symposium
00099192/02/0312:412333.100 Proto-World (Part 1)
00103492/02/1110:541043.141 The Latest from the Popular Press
00106292/02/2211:281833.171 Language Deficit
00111592/03/0614:351383.222 Conferences: DIMACS WORKSHOP, Second Language
00113292/03/1109:122233.239 Natural Language, E-Prime, Rules
00117092/03/2111:013113.276 Rules And The Brain
00117492/03/2309:011623.280 Disambiguation, Language & Evolution
00133892/05/2708:521893.441 Rules, Innateness
00136792/06/0610:491853.470 Queries: Lx and Lit, Software, Nat. Phonology, SF
00144492/07/0123:232183.546 Innateness, Dissimilation Summary
00158692/09/1310:051023.687 FYI: Publications: BLS; Geneva
00229593/05/1200:131934.366 Sum: Theme/Patient
00242693/06/2311:071584.495 GB and politics
00314394/01/2718:084715.97 Sum: Transformations
00316894/02/0314:231045.127 FYI: Cornell Publications, Computing, Linguistics in Media
00325194/02/2209:531475.195 Bedtime reading; Ode to a Spell Checker
00329294/03/0208:27465.245 Book Available: General ling
00346694/04/1109:342595.418 Mainstream
00358794/05/1006:501115.539 Sum: Chomsky
00362094/05/1921:051045.572 A linguist's nightmare
00363394/05/2118:061545.593 Qs: Chinese/Korean; Letter frequency; Prescription; Italian
00368094/06/0208:302755.623 Review: _The Language Instinct: How the mind creates language_
00368594/06/0313:00775.643 Linguistics and popular publications
00372594/06/1006:05895.676 The Language Instinct
00374194/06/1512:461425.695 Sum: Order of conjuncts, Addendum to ape language summary
00375894/06/2006:433115.709 The popularization of linguistics
00381094/06/2905:441205.761 Varia: Pinker's book, Chaology & complexity
00381794/06/3008:411675.768 Pinker's book and linguist bashing
00382994/07/0706:051275.780 Pinker's book, Quantum physics
00383994/07/1107:411765.791 Varia: Linguist-bashing, Popularisation of linguistics
00385194/07/1210:542055.799 Linguist-bashing
00386294/07/1808:171045.815 Jobs: Phonetics of Irish English, RESEACH ENGINEER
00389694/07/2617:511455.848 Varia: Popularization, Linguistics-bashing, Pinker's instinct
00391094/07/3117:361775.861 Varia: Popularizing linguistics, Inoffensish lg, Akuna matata
00402294/09/0916:232285.974 Confs: NELS25 final information package
00428094/11/0319:562105.1227 Corpus analysis of -BODY/-ONE
00433694/11/1207:061265.1283 FYI: Working Paper Series - Budapest, Language films
00452694/12/1819:381445.1469 Trends in linguistics
00465495/01/2113:291256.85 Qs: Phrase-tagging, Correlative constructions, Kimmo help,TV show
00476495/02/1207:131606.195 Sum: References on non-human language
00487495/02/2616:413336.304 Sum: Discussion of human and non-human language
00514895/04/1713:26786.578 Sum: Correct references on lang development
00569295/08/1709:261086.1112, Qs: Sapir-Whorf, Phrase identification, Yiddish
00572895/08/2216:162876.1149, Disc: Sapir-Whorf and what to tell students these days
00576195/08/3012:532196.1181, Sum: Teenage ling
00604395/10/2015:025536.1467, Review: Gleitman/Landau reviewed by Elsa Lattey
00605495/10/2212:492476.1478, Disc: Prescriptivism
00606495/10/2316:573306.1488, Sum: Oronyms
00622995/11/2313:23966.1653, FYI: Postdocs at MIT
00628095/12/0510:211236.1705, Qs: Ethymology of paella, Center-embedding, Common root words
00632195/12/1409:551256.1744, Qs: Parser, Force dynamics, Icelandic, B. Laca
00651196/01/3000:232627.144, FYI: Systemic-Functional WWW, Apes & Language
00670096/03/0215:521957.333, Confs: Lang acquisition (GALA 1997), Northwest Ling Conference
00674396/03/1122:331377.376, Qs: Occitan & Gascon, Pinker, Adjective ordering in English
00681296/03/2310:052407.445, Sum: Teaching English Grammar
00688496/04/0908:151557.517, Disc: Economy, Minimalism, and Formalism
00690096/04/1109:372037.533, Disc: Economy, Minimalism, Formalism
00690596/04/1210:193107.538, Sum: Reading after Whorf's "Language, Mind and Reality"
00696896/04/2320:011907.601, Calls: GALA 97 (Lg Acq), ESCOL 96
00699096/04/2609:171567.623, Sum: Germanic versus Romance properties of English words
00700096/04/3008:342907.633, Disc: Ungrammaticality
00747896/08/0616:561057.1116, Qs: Final consonants, Pinker interview, Specific/generic ref.
00749396/08/1208:021627.1131, Disc: Arabic Sign Language
00754796/08/2422:351957.1186, Qs: Software, Schemata, Linguists' dates, Dialect in L2 class
00757896/09/0120:332987.1217, Calls: Bilingualism, NLP in Implemented Systems
00766796/09/1906:533157.1305, Calls: Lang acq (GALA 97), Hist of lang, Lang acq (GASLA 97)
00767196/09/2018:381227.1311, Sum: Lexicalization references
00779296/10/1321:272117.1433, Sum: Cognitive science intro book
00779996/10/1422:29927.1440, Disc: Ergatives in lang acq
00817496/12/2109:323997.1812, Disc: Analogy
00844997/02/2118:313188.254, Calls: Language Alive, Instructional technol.
00853297/03/0823:235608.337, Confs: Language Acquisition, Minimalism
00857497/03/1809:481588.378, Qs: Lg origins, Armenian, Job lists
00861597/03/2709:501778.419, FYI: Ebonics article acknowledgments
00864797/04/0218:381258.451, Sum: Lexical vs. pronominal subjects
00868097/04/0722:592318.476, FYI: Motor theory, Conf list, Online course
00944997/08/2915:262518.1244, Calls: BLS Conference, Artificial Intelligence
00956097/09/2416:20668.1355, Qs: Pitch Metaphor
00967097/10/1020:441668.1465, Confs: Berkeley Linguistics Society
00968597/10/1414:501608.1480, Calls: Berkeley Ling Society
01003797/12/2222:192748.1832, Disc: Prescriptivism
01010998/01/1616:101069.68, Disc: Prescriptivism
Item #55 (19 Feb 1991 12:51) - 2.43 Cognitive Linguistics
 neurolinguistic/psycholinguistic literature. It is hardly likely that
such researchers as Steven Pinker, Jerry Fodor, Yosef Grodzinsky, to
name but three, have not read as well as anyone in the area about claims

Item #59 (23 Feb 1991 12:51) - 2.47 Conferences
Keynote Speaker: STEVEN PINKER, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Item #119 (1 Apr 1991 12:51) - 2.108 Conferences: SAMLA, Southeast Asian, SPP
 University)
Speaker: Steve Pinker (Brain and Cognitive
Science, MIT)

Item #349 (23 Jul 1991 19:13) - Conference and Job Information
KEYNOTE ADDRESS: Steven Pinker, MIT, "Rules of Language"

Item #469 (7 Sep 1991 23:59) - Calls for Papers /2-478
 Brian MacWhinney, Carnegie Mellon University
Steven Pinker, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Item #523 (17 Sep 1991 15:51) - 2.526 Conferences
Keynote Speaker: Steven Pinker, MIT
Saturday Evening Speaker: Neil Smith, University College London

Item #575 (27 Sep 1991 18:10) - 2.578 Of Mice and Mouses
 Date: Fri, 27 Sep 91 13:30:58 EDT
From: steve@psyche.mit.edu (Steve Pinker)
Subject: Of Mice and Men
Date: Fri, 27 Sep 91 13:30:58 EDT
From: steve@psyche.mit.edu (Steve Pinker)
Subject: Of Mice and Men

Steve Pinker
John J. Kim

John J. Kim, Steven Pinker, Alan Prince, and Sandeep Prasada (1991).
``Why no mere mortal has ever flown out to center field,'' Cognitive

Steven Pinker, et al. ``Of mice and men,'' In preparation.

Item #705 (25 Oct 1991 14:56) - 2.708 FYI
 James Harris (L&P) David Pesetsky (L&P)
Irene Heim (L&P) Steven Pinker (BCS)
James Higginbotham (L&P) Mary Potter (BCS)

Item #980 (31 Jan 1992 12:57) - 3.89 UWM Linguistics Symposium
 evidence"
Steven Pinker, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Item #991 (3 Feb 1992 12:41) - 3.100 Proto-World (Part 1)
 It isn't entirely ignored though - US News & World Report has reported
recently on Steve Pinker's work. If people outside the discipline do
not share our views of what is significant, we should take this as a

Item #1034 (11 Feb 1992 10:54) - 3.141 The Latest from the Popular Press
 Association for the Advancement of Science.
Steven Pinker of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said
it was first suggested in the 1960s that there was a genetic

Item #1062 (22 Feb 1992 11:28) - 3.171 Language Deficit
 acquired by children or used by adults. The closest offering is by Steve
Pinker and his colleagues, but even they admit that most of the details are
mysterious. For example, they maintain the usual linguistic division

Item #1115 (6 Mar 1992 14:35) - 3.222 Conferences: DIMACS WORKSHOP, Second Language
 Anderson: Morphology
Pinker and Prince: Interaction of Regular and Irregular Morphology
Williams: Acquisition of Paradigm Structure

Item #1132 (11 Mar 1992 09:12) - 3.239 Natural Language, E-Prime, Rules
 The issue raised by Alexis Manaster-Ramer in his recent posting on this
question is partly addressed in an article by Steven Pinker that appeared
in Science several issues ago. Joe Stemberger also has an interest in this

Item #1170 (21 Mar 1992 11:01) - 3.276 Rules And The Brain
 and 3rd singular indicative morphemes which appeared in _Experimental
Linguistics_ (G. Prideaux ed.) and more recently the Pinker paper "Rules
of language" in _Science_ 253 (8/2/91) pp 530-535. D&B show that the
analysis most linguists favor for the allomorphy of these morphemes best
describes their acquisition and Pinker shows that both rule and associative
memory (connectionist) schemas are necessary to account comprehensively for

Item #1174 (23 Mar 1992 09:01) - 3.280 Disambiguation, Language & Evolution
Pinker,S. & Bloom, P. (1990) Natural language and natural selection. Behavioral
and Brain Sciences, 13,707-784.

Item #1338 (27 May 1992 08:52) - 3.441 Rules, Innateness
(2) read Pinker and Bloom, 'Natural Language and Natural Selection'
in a recent (1990?) issue of BBS, and all the peer commentary that

Item #1367 (6 Jun 1992 10:49) - 3.470 Queries: Lx and Lit, Software, Nat. Phonology, SF
 In particular, the role of phonology in any putative "bootstrap" mechanism
for the early acquisition of language (such as that discussed by S. Pinker et.
al.) seems poorly understood - are there any psycholinguistics or

Item #1444 (1 Jul 1992 23:23) - 3.546 Innateness, Dissimilation Summary
 Clahsen) language impairment (B. Tomblin and J. Johnston) and psychology
(S. Pinker and L. Petitto). If you want to find out about a broad range
of empirical evidence that is beginning to answer the WHAT question join

Item #1586 (13 Sep 1992 10:05) - 3.687 FYI: Publications: BLS; Geneva
 BLS 17 contains papers by Derek Bickerton, Joan Bresnan, John McCarthy, Stephen
Pinker, and Geoff Pullum and Arnold Zwicky; the parasession on Grammar of
Event Structure has papers by Scott DeLancey, Paul Hopper, Jean Mandler,

Item #2295 (12 May 1993 13:53) - 4.366 Sum: Theme/Patient
>Prof. Connolly-- You might take a look at Stephen Pinker's
>book of 1989,

I have not yet consulted Pinker's book, but this is a good lead. BTW,
as a case grammarian, I'm not afraid of covert categories; I just want

Item #2426 (23 Jun 1993 11:07) - 4.495 GB and politics
 which are to a learge extent a defense of the generative position.
And others (e.g. Lightfoot, Koster, Pinker, etc. etc.) have done the
same. Similarly, in the late 70's Gazdar's GPSG was, in fact,

Item #3143 (27 Jan 1994 18:08) - 5.97 Sum: Transformations
 and he made reference to Levin, B. (1993), _English Verb Classes and
Alternations_ (U of Chicago press) and Pinker, S. (1989), _Learnability and
Cognition: the Aquisition of Argument Structure_ (MIT Press).

Item #3168 (3 Feb 1994 14:23) - 5.127 FYI: Cornell Publications, Computing, Linguistics in Media
 In the most recent issue of the New Republic, there's a long article (ca. 5
pages as I recall) written by Steve Pinker and addressing "the language
mavens" like William Safire. It basically presents the standard linguistic

Item #3251 (22 Feb 1994 09:53) - 5.195 Bedtime reading; Ode to a Spell Checker
 the following corrections and additions from Dan Maxwell, David Nash,
Steve Pinker, and Herb Stahlke:

- any book by Mario Pei in addition to the one on the list
- Pinker, Steven. l994. The language instinct. William Morrow and Co.
(Steve tells us the book is "excellent bedtime reading, full of humorous

Item #3292 (2 Mar 1994 08:27) - 5.245 Book Available: General ling
Pinker, Steven THE LANGUAGE INSTINCT, 1994, 494 pages,
US $23.00 library cloth edition. William Morrow & Co., Inc

Item #3466 (11 Apr 1994 09:34) - 5.418 Mainstream
 semantics). Similar ideas surface in much generative work,
including that of Pinker and Jackendoff. An emphasis on
construction meaning, while characteristic of cognitivism,

Item #3587 (10 May 1994 06:50) - 5.539 Sum: Chomsky
 I just came across an interesting paraphrase of the argument in Stephen
Pinker's new _Language Instinct_, pp. 89-103. You know, presumably, of
Newmeyer's discussion in _Linguistic Theory_ (pp.22-8 in the 1st ed.).

Item #3620 (19 May 1994 21:05) - 5.572 A linguist's nightmare
 Our view was contrasted by Safire with the damnable one
that "language is innate," attributed by him to Steve Pinker
owing to the latter's recent book. As most of you

Item #3633 (21 May 1994 18:06) - 5.593 Qs: Chinese/Korean; Letter frequency; Prescription; Italian
 Nunberg, 1982, The decline of grammar
Pinker, 1994 "The language mavens" chapter in The language instinct.

Item #3680 (2 Jun 1994 08:30) - 5.623 Review: _The Language Instinct: How the mind creates language_
 Initiation of discussion of _The Language Instinct: How the mind creates
language_, by Steven Pinker. 1994, William Morrow.

language use, and even more so when I learned that that guest was Steven
Pinker.

1, "An Instinct to Acquire an Art" introduces the language capacity and
the endeavors of linguistics. Pinker here highlights Chomsky's
contributions to the "mental grammar" to the exclusion of non-Chomskian
the text. The book also contains a glossary, with definitions, and often
examples, of the technical terms which Pinker uses liberally (but generally
comprehensibly) in the text. Some of these terms are: finite-state

I enjoyed much about this book. Pinker's writing style comes as close as
one might hope to a series of public lectures. It contains a readable and

I appreciated the fact that Pinker has compiled results from acquisition,
from impairment, from neural-net modelling, and from comparisons with the
behavior--and they make it in a way that will grab the general reader. I
take issue below with Pinker's conclusions from this evidence.


Pinker presents this model as THE result from linguistics, and the only
interpretation of the facts. This raises an issue worth exploring: In a
and why it is interesting, but which does not represent the theoretical and
social diversity of the field? Does Pinker do a disservice to those whose
ideas are ignored or dismissed in this work, or does his service to the
and cognitive science aren't accorded higher status than interpretations of
those results. Pinker does not mention that other interpretations even
exist. The claim that the "language ability" is a product of evolution is

Pinker neglects to mention that the results of the cited studies, and the
conclusion that there is an innate capacity which is manifested in language
and cognition (or whatever a Darwinian would identify as their analogues)
unmentioned. This is particularly unfortunate given Pinker's (and the
readers') acknowledged fascination with the relationship between language
universals of culture and conception should lead the thoughtful reader to
this question, except that Pinker has spent 400 pages precluding its
formulation.

Item #3685 (3 Jun 1994 13:00) - 5.643 Linguistics and popular publications
I thought Steven Pinker did just that. Yet newspaper columnists who've read
his book still misunderstand what "grammar" is. People don't tend to write

Item #3725 (10 Jun 1994 06:05) - 5.676 The Language Instinct
 Date: Fri, 3 Jun 94 14:56:08 EDT
From: Steve Pinker <steve@psyche.mit.edu>
Subject: posting
Date: Fri, 3 Jun 94 14:56:08 EDT
From: Steve Pinker <steve@psyche.mit.edu>
Subject: posting

Steve Pinker
(steve@psyche.mit.edu)

Item #3741 (15 Jun 1994 12:46) - 5.695 Sum: Order of conjuncts, Addendum to ape language summary
 Ton van der Wouden, Raphael Salkie, Bill Rapaport, Kay Bock, Maryellen
MacDonald, Steve Pinker, and Grev Corbett. The references they suggested are
given below. Also Mel Resnick remarks:

Pinker, Steven and David Birdsong. (1979). Speakers' sensitivity to rules of
frozen word order. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 18, 497-

Pinker, Steven. 1994. The Language Instinct. William Morrow; see pp. 166-
170.

Pinker, S. & P. Bloom (1990) "Natural language and natural
selection" _Behavioral_and Brain_Sciences_ 13:707.

Item #3758 (20 Jun 1994 06:43) - 5.709 The popularization of linguistics
 language issues in the popular press. I was pretty horrified by Lila
Gleitman's report. I was pretty horrified to read Pinker's report (in _The
Language Instinct_) of the mangling of his and Myrna Gopnik's work by
(I don't get US press here so I'm inferring from information on LINGUIST).
Despite the negatives reported in my recent review, I found Pinker's book
about as accessible--and entertaining--a presentation of the concerns of
won't budge from their positions simply because they can be shown to be
irrational. (Maybe this is Pinker's punishment for his own
linguist-bashing?) I started my review with a mention of Pinker's _Talk of
the Nation_ visit. In that show he responded really cogently to a

BTW, I want to thank Pinker for responding to my review and pointing out
places where perhaps my reading was less than careful. I have some

Item #3810 (29 Jun 1994 05:44) - 5.761 Varia: Pinker's book, Chaology & complexity
 From: The Linguist List <linguist@tamsun.tamu.edu>
Subject: 5.761 Varia: Pinker's book, Chaology & complexity


Subject: 5.761 Varia: Pinker's book, Chaology & complexity

From: mnewman@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Michael Newman)
Subject: Pinker's book

From: mnewman@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Michael Newman)
Subject: Pinker's book

I'm a little surprised about how few comments have been made to Steven
Pinker's book. I suppose it's on a number of people's summer reading list,
and that most haven't gotten to it yet. For me, however, it has been a
need of some sort of speech therapy. By comparison, most of the class
struggled through Halliday and Hasan, who much more than Pinker attempt to
relate their theory to teaching.
that goes beyond being a silly fashion that started in the 18th century as
Pinker implies. However, these are relatively minor quibbles in a work
that communicates the large and small notions of what linguistics is about

Item #3817 (30 Jun 1994 08:41) - 5.768 Pinker's book and linguist bashing
 From: The Linguist List <linguist@tamsun.tamu.edu>
Subject: 5.768 Pinker's book and linguist bashing


Subject: 5.768 Pinker's book and linguist bashing

From: dalford@s1.csuhayward.edu (Dan Alford)
Subject: Pinker's book and linguist bashing

From: dalford@s1.csuhayward.edu (Dan Alford)
Subject: Pinker's book and linguist bashing

I thoroughly enjoyed Claudia Brugman's review of Steven Pinker's book,
and my mouth dropped open at Michael Newman's recent comment that
he doesn't *see anything which could remotely be considered linguist
bashing*! Consider the so-called Whorf chapter where Pinker takes on
his (supposedly) greatest enemy, Benjamin Whorf. Of course since, as
we shall see, since Pinker doesn't really consider Whorf a linguist, he
might argue that this isn't linguist bashing at all.
Predictably, as I pointed out 16 years ago in The Demise of the Whorf
Hypothesis (BLS), we find Pinker's text dominated by strawman positions
and ad-hominem arguments. We are introduced on p. 57 to "the famous

In addition, Pinker either does not know about or is resolutely disregarding
the work of cognitive scientist Dan Slobin on a particular form of thinking
is a far cry from claiming that language is the same thing as thought.
Pinker's bias is clear when he says "The idea that language shapes thinking
was plausible when scientists were in the dark about how thinking works

While Pinker mentions Reagan's famous "Mistakes were made" (assuming
that he is talking about the copular "to be" while actually referring to a
neither he nor Sapir ever formulated the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis they are
so indelibly linked to in some people's minds. Who is Pinker fighting here
when even Whorf and Whorfians agree that linguistic determinism is
wrong? Pinker, like most Whorf critics, doesn't understand that Whorf
generally argued from a systems perspective inherited from quantum
have been telling us about this for almost a century, that our particular
cultural notion of time is a linguistic construct! Is Pinker taking on
quantum physics now?

Finally, let's examine Pinker's color words and Hopi time arguments. In
showing the obvious absurdity of language having anything whatsoever
actually said that language reaches down into the retina and rewires the
ganglion cells? Got any citations for that, Pinker? Why is this form of
argumentation still okay?

And then there's the famous Hopi time. Pinker cites the work of Ekkehart
Malotki to show that Hopis do indeed have time terms. I point you all to a
adopt Whorf's exact position and then call Whorf wrong? And therefore,
how can I, or Pinker, in all good conscience trust or cite his work?

tendencies." [LTR p. 145]) in their rush to squeeze him into a mindless
determinist mode they can attack. Indeed, Pinker in just a few pages proves
what I have suspected for a long time: it's perfectly okay these days to talk

Item #3829 (7 Jul 1994 06:05) - 5.780 Pinker's book, Quantum physics
 From: The Linguist List <linguist@tamsun.tamu.edu>
Subject: 5.780 Pinker's book, Quantum physics


Subject: 5.780 Pinker's book, Quantum physics

From: amr@zeus.cs.wayne.edu
Subject: Re: 5.768 Pinker's book and linguist bashing

From: amr@zeus.cs.wayne.edu
Subject: Re: 5.768 Pinker's book and linguist bashing

A few remarks re Dan Alford's comments on Pinker on Whorf:

as an insurance man, which of course is true but in context sounds
dismissive, and said about the same about him as Pinker.


My girlfriend forwarded the critique by Moonhawk of Pinker's critique of Whorf.
I have only slight familiarity with either Pinker or Whorf, but I am a
theoretical physicist and I was bothered by Moonhawk's use of references to
I think I like Whorf's ideas, insofar as I understand them. But in fairness
to Pinker I submit some comments on some sentences from Moonhawk's posting.

>Pinker, like most Whorf critics, doesn't understand that Whorf
>generally argued from a systems perspective inherited from quantum
>about this for almost a century, that our particular cultural notion
>of time is a linguistic construct! Is Pinker taking on quantum physics
>now?

Item #3839 (11 Jul 1994 07:41) - 5.791 Varia: Linguist-bashing, Popularisation of linguistics
 L'Etude du Systeme Nerveux Central et Peripherique at the
Harvard Medical School at which Ursula Bellugi, Stephen Pinker and I are
invited participants, together with neurologists, neuropsychologists etc.
and linguistics. We should indeed do what we can to 'popularize' the
field as has been suggested. But do not despair. And books like Pinker's
and Ray Jackendoff's' Language and Human Nature' (which has not been

Item #3851 (12 Jul 1994 10:54) - 5.799 Linguist-bashing
 focused, that is probably correct. (Though I should note that her list of
people making an impact on neuroscience--Pinker, Jackendoff,
Bellugi--rather noticeably does not include anybody doing current GB
syntax. I find Pinker, Jackendoff and Bellugi's work highly useful, too,
even where I disagree with underlying assumptions. I think their impact

Item #3862 (18 Jul 1994 08:17) - 5.815 Jobs: Phonetics of Irish English, RESEACH ENGINEER
 I've heard a number of good things about Dragon (there's even brief
mention of it in Pinker's book). I think it would be wonderful place
to work.

Item #3896 (26 Jul 1994 17:51) - 5.848 Varia: Popularization, Linguistics-bashing, Pinker's instinct
 Subject: 5.848 Varia: Popularization, Linguistics-bashing,
Pinker's instinct


Subject: 5.848 Varia: Popularization, Linguistics-bashing, Pinker's instinct

From: HORNING@argo.acs.oakland.edu
Subject: Pinker's Language Instinct/popularization

From: HORNING@argo.acs.oakland.edu
Subject: Pinker's Language Instinct/popularization

After all the discussion on LINGUIST about Pinker and the popularization of
linguistics, I am surprised by two things, having read most of the book:
1)Why is it that no one has mentioned the fact that in addition to being
insightful and well-written, Pinker's book is just plain funny?

2)Why is it that no one has had much to say about Ray Jackendoff's equally
interesting and insightful book of similar type to Pinker's?

Item #3910 (31 Jul 1994 17:36) - 5.861 Varia: Popularizing linguistics, Inoffensish lg, Akuna matata
Does Pinker's book, or Jackendoffs, seem sectarian, expressing views that
not all linguists embrace? So did Sapir's _Language_. Bloomfield's

Item #4022 (9 Sep 1994 16:23) - 5.974 Confs: NELS25 final information package
Alternate: Gary Marcus, Steve Pinker and Leah Larkey, Univ. of Massachusetts
and MIT. Using high density spontaneous speech data to study the acquisition of

Item #4280 (3 Nov 1994 19:56) - 5.1227 Corpus analysis of -BODY/-ONE
 point about how singular pronouns are associated with specific people. And
similar point was also made by Pinker in THE LANGUAGE INSTINCT in the
chapter on prescription.

Item #4336 (12 Nov 1994 07:06) - 5.1283 FYI: Working Paper Series - Budapest, Language films
 explain difficult concepts, and it does it with great wit and fun. An
outstanding accomplishment."--Steven Pinker

Item #4526 (18 Dec 1994 19:38) - 5.1469 Trends in linguistics
 undergraduate courses in cognitive science. One of its chapters, by
Steven Pinker, reviews a wide range of empirically-grounded studies of
children's acquisition of English past tense morphology, and offers a
themes of "cognitive linguistics" as I understand them. The research
that Pinker surveys is corpus-based---indeed the documentation for the
CHILDES corpus is in the "suggestions for further reading"---but he

Item #4654 (21 Jan 1995 13:29) - 6.85 Qs: Phrase-tagging, Correlative constructions, Kimmo help,TV show
 shows on linguistics (were they on Nova?) that were shown at
the LSA meeting in 1994, and in which Pinker, Gleitman, etc. appear?
Annette Herskovits

Item #4764 (12 Feb 1995 07:13) - 6.195 Sum: References on non-human language
Pinker, S. 1994. The Language Instinct (chapter 11). New York: Morrow.

Item #4874 (26 Feb 1995 16:41) - 6.304 Sum: Discussion of human and non-human language
 On the subject of the cognitive organization of the brains of non-human
primates, Steven Pinker, on p. 350 of his recent book The Language Ins-
tinct: How the Mind Creates Language, discusses their equivalents of

Item #5148 (17 Apr 1995 13:26) - 6.578 Sum: Correct references on lang development
 Books). In his endnotes (p. 208), Gazzaniga refers to a paper by
Stephen Pinker and Paul Bloom ("Natural language and natural
selection", in *Behavioral and Brain Sciences* 13:4 (1990)). The page
numbers for that reference (723-724: two pages??) ought to have made
me wary. Anyway, Pinker and Bloom (whose paper I haven't seen myself)
seem to refer to the Bates paper I was interested in; Gazzaniga claims
he found it in their work, and he used some of Bates e.a.'s examples
as reported by Pinker and Bloom (without checking the source,
apparently, or else he would not have copied a faulty reference). The

Item #5692 (17 Aug 1995 09:26) - 6.1112, Qs: Sapir-Whorf, Phrase identification, Yiddish
 relativity (let's leave ling. determinism aside, or the stronger version).
But I have been reading Pinker's The Lg. Instinct. It is stated therein
that Whorf was clearly wrong on all counts (and how could he have been so

Item #5728 (22 Aug 1995 16:16) - 6.1149, Disc: Sapir-Whorf and what to tell students these days
 also BLS, 1980?, paper, "Is Whorf's Relativity Einstein's Relativity?").
Ah, now we've gotten to the crux of it -- much against Pinker's stand
(which was copied and intensified in a Lingua Franca short bio of Suzette
Whorf cobbled together his theory from a few ill-translated snatches of
Apache -- echoing a Pinker statement and relying on Pinker's quoting
Whorf correctly, which he didn't, about a canoe on a beach pointwise:
which Pinker identified as an Apache sentence, but which Whorf knew quite
well was Nootka in the Pacific Northwest rather than Apache in the

As you can see by now, Pinker -- like all other facile critics and
unindicted co-creators of the so-called hypothesis -- is out of his
the most important interdisciplinary discussions ever in the history of
ideas. Pinker, like Chomsky, loves logic (which grows out of the grammar
of SAE languages just as the philosophy of 'karma' grew out of the

Item #5761 (30 Aug 1995 12:53) - 6.1181, Sum: Teenage ling
Pinker , Steven (1994), _The Language Instinct: the New Science of
Language and Mind_, Allen Lane/Penguin.
including an intelligent and curious teenager. Be warned, though, that
Pinker is highly opinionated, which gives the book a robust integrity and
excitement; however it means there isn't much 'some linguists think X but

Item #6043 (20 Oct 1995 15:02) - 6.1467, Review: Gleitman/Landau reviewed by Elsa Lattey
 Categories, words, and language (Markman, Waxman, Landau,
Bloom); The case of verbs (Fisher et al, Pinker, Grimshaw); and
6. Procedures for verb learning (Brent, Steedman).
alternation') that are referred to in later papers (Grimshaw,
Fisher et al, Pinker) in terms of learning issues.

vocabulary growth") focus on the mediating function of the
syntactic subcategorization structures, Pinker ("How could a
child use verb syntax to learn verb semantics?") argues that

Pinker takes issue with Gleitman (1990), but in fact also with
Fisher et al, suggesting that their arguments speak only
In the last paper in this section, Grimshaw proceeds from the
two controversial positions in Pinker 1989 and Gleitman 1990
"that the semantics of a word is critically involved in the

For Pinker:
3.1.2: You say that pairs that referred to exactly the same

Item #6054 (22 Oct 1995 12:49) - 6.1478, Disc: Prescriptivism
 kinds (or all kinds) of prescriptivism, if they are widely read
(e.g., Pinker's works) inevitably have an effect on their readers'
ideas of correctness. Unless I am much mistaken, there are numerous

Item #6064 (23 Oct 1995 16:57) - 6.1488, Sum: Oronyms
 >From Kimberly Barskaitiki
The following are from Steven Pinker (MIT), _The Language Instinct_, (1994
paperback):

My syntax prof told me about this one, and it is in Pinker, too (page 186):
Gladly the cross-eyed bear. (Gladly the cross I'd bear.)

Item #6229 (23 Nov 1995 13:23) - 6.1653, FYI: Postdocs at MIT
 Questions about the program may be sent to the Director, Professor
Steven Pinker, steve@psyche.mit.edu. Questions about the fellowships
may be sent to Judith Rauchwarger, judithr@wccf.mit.edu, E25-406, MIT,
David Pesetsky, linguistics, psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics.
Steven Pinker (Director), language and cognitive science.
Tomaso Poggio, neural computation, learning, visual perception.

Item #6280 (5 Dec 1995 10:21) - 6.1705, Qs: Ethymology of paella, Center-embedding, Common root words
 I've found lots of discussions (especially in introductory books - the
above example is from Pinker's `The Language Instinct'), but no
experimental data (or any other kind of data). There's no shortage of

Item #6321 (14 Dec 1995 09:55) - 6.1744, Qs: Parser, Force dynamics, Icelandic, B. Laca
 language, as it is described in Talmy (1985). I know that Jackendoff (1990)
and Pinker (1989) refers to it in their analyses of verb semantics,


Pinker, S. (1989). Learnability and cognition. MIT Press.

Item #6511 (30 Jan 1996 23:31) - 7.144, FYI: Systemic-Functional WWW, Apes & Language
 What is language? F&R, ch. 1
Pinker, pp. 342-351

2 Language Acquisition F&R, 10 (393-416);
Pinker, pp. 32-39,
Language vs. Communication 7 (294-299)
9 Critiques, replies to Kanzi research; Seidenberg & Petitto
Pinker, pp. 332-432;
Methodology, interpretation of Savage-Rumbaugh Chomsky in
Boulder: Westview Press.
Pinker, S. 1994. The Language Instinct. New York: William Morrow.
Premack, D. & Premack, A. J. 1983. The Mind of an Ape. New York: W.W. Morton.

Item #6700 (2 Mar 1996 15:52) - 7.333, Confs: Lang acquisition (GALA 1997), Northwest Ling Conference
 Peter Jusczyk
Steven Pinker
Andrew Radford

Item #6743 (11 Mar 1996 22:33) - 7.376, Qs: Occitan & Gascon, Pinker, Adjective ordering in English
 From: The Linguist List <linguist@tam2000.tamu.edu>
Subject: 7.376, Qs: Occitan & Gascon, Pinker, Adjective ordering in English


Subject: 7.376, Qs: Occitan & Gascon, Pinker, Adjective ordering in English

From: rmallott@percep.demon.co.uk (rmallott)
Subject: Pinker The Language Instinct

From: rmallott@percep.demon.co.uk (rmallott)
Subject: Pinker The Language Instinct

so, could someone refer me to the archive. If not, is the general
view that Pinker's ideas are sound and useful - or that, as I am
inclined to think, they are open to a number of criticisms ?

Item #6812 (23 Mar 1996 10:05) - 7.445, Sum: Teaching English Grammar
 NUNBERG, Geoff (1983) "Grammar Wars" The Atlantic Monthly: December.
Pinker, Steven (????) "It speaks for itself" NewYorkTimes (NYT) article
PULLUM (????) 4"Here Come the Linguistic Fascists"

Item #6884 (9 Apr 1996 08:15) - 7.517, Disc: Economy, Minimalism, and Formalism
 grammatical formalisms can be derived from the visual system, or the
motor system (Pinker and Bloom) only indicates either the limitations
of our understanding of these systems or something wrong with the

Item #6900 (11 Apr 1996 09:37) - 7.533, Disc: Economy, Minimalism, Formalism
 grammatical formalisms can be derived from the visual system, or the
motor system (Pinker and Bloom) only indicates either the limitations
of our understanding of these systems or something wrong with the

Item #6905 (12 Apr 1996 10:19) - 7.538, Sum: Reading after Whorf's "Language, Mind and Reality"
Steven Pinker, The Language Instinct: How the Mind creates Language,
William Morrow and Company, New York, 1994.

Item #6968 (23 Apr 1996 20:01) - 7.601, Calls: GALA 97 (Lg Acq), ESCOL 96
 Peter Jusczyk
Steven Pinker
Andrew Radford

Item #6990 (26 Apr 1996 09:17) - 7.623, Sum: Germanic versus Romance properties of English words
 >This is Makoto Kondo at Shizuoka University, Japan. One example that I can
>think of is the property concerning dativizability. Pinker (1989:45-46)
>notes "It has often been pointed out that dativizable verbs tend to have
> alternation," ms. Brandeis University.
>Pinker, S. (1989) Learnability and Cognition, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass.
>
>of a distinction (in English) between germanic and latinate words you
>may want to check out Pinker's "Learnability and Cognition: the Acquisition
>of Argument Structure" (1989). Pinker investigates the learnability
>consequences of the fact that phenomena such as dative alternation

Item #7000 (30 Apr 1996 08:34) - 7.633, Disc: Ungrammaticality
 only amount to a vanishingly small part of the grammars which the
children correctly learn. I also wonder if Pinker has commented
on this topic one way or another -- a way to gauge the current status of

Item #7478 (6 Aug 1996 16:56) - 7.1116, Qs: Final consonants, Pinker interview, Specific/generic ref.
 From: The Linguist List <linguist@tam2000.tamu.edu>
Subject: 7.1116, Qs: Final consonants, Pinker interview,
Specific/generic ref.

Subject: 7.1116, Qs: Final consonants, Pinker interview, Specific/generic ref.

From: DSCHMIDT@uga.cc.uga.edu (Deborah Schmidt)
Subject: Q: Pinker interview video

From: DSCHMIDT@uga.cc.uga.edu (Deborah Schmidt)
Subject: Q: Pinker interview video

About a year ago I watched a video of a long interview with Steven
Pinker. I believe it is available for purchase. Do any of you know a
phone number or email or other contact address for the distributor?

Item #7493 (12 Aug 1996 08:02) - 7.1131, Disc: Arabic Sign Language
 The best way to promote communication among deaf people is to help them get
together on a regular basis. To borrow Steven Pinker's title, the language
instinct will take care of the rest. As for communication with hearing

Item #7547 (24 Aug 1996 22:35) - 7.1186, Qs: Software, Schemata, Linguists' dates, Dialect in L2 class
 LYONS, John
PINKER, Steven
POKORNY, Julius

Item #7578 (1 Sep 1996 20:33) - 7.1217, Calls: Bilingualism, NLP in Implemented Systems
 Paul Meara, Lesley Milroy, Pieter Muysken, Carol Myers-Scotton,
Loraine K. Obler, Michel Paradis, Shana Poplack, Steven Pinker, Ben
Rampton, Suzanne Romaine, Dan Slobin, Bernard Spolsky, Catherine Snow

Item #7667 (19 Sep 1996 06:53) - 7.1305, Calls: Lang acq (GALA 97), Hist of lang, Lang acq (GASLA 97)
 Peter Jusczyk
Steven Pinker
Andrew Radford

Item #7671 (20 Sep 1996 18:38) - 7.1311, Sum: Lexicalization references
Pinker, S. (1989). _Learnability and cognition: The acquisition of
argument structure_. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Item #7792 (13 Oct 1996 21:27) - 7.1433, Sum: Cognitive science intro book
 cognition. 2nd Edition. NY.: W. H. Freeman.
Pinker, S., & Mehler, J. (1988). Connections and
symbols. A ?Bates Cognition Special Issue. The MIT Press.

Item #7799 (14 Oct 1996 22:29) - 7.1440, Disc: Ergatives in lang acq
 for 'unaccusativity' in early English L1 syntax. Can we just do a
Pinker here and ask ourselves "what has to be acquired"? English
doesn't any more have split intransitivity as do French Dutch etc

Item #8174 (21 Dec 1996 09:32) - 7.1812, Disc: Analogy
Pinker (1989) justifies at length an account of such cases that goes, in
essence as follows. "...The double object form expresses causation of a
University of Chicago Press.
Pinker, Stephen. 1989. Learnability and Cognition: The Acquisition of
Argument Structure. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

Item #8449 (21 Feb 1997 18:31) - 8.254, Calls: Language Alive, Instructional technol.
 **Prescriptivism unseated**
Steven PINKER: The Language Mavens

For example, readers have been well served by Deborah Tannen's "You Just Don't
Understand", and "Talking from 9 to 5", Steve Pinker's "Language Instinct" and
Ray Jackendoff's"Patterns in the Mind". The documentaries "The Story of

Item #8532 (8 Mar 1997 23:23) - 8.337, Confs: Language Acquisition, Minimalism
 Peter Jusczyk
Steven Pinker
Bonnie D. Schwartz
2.00-3.00, Plenary Session:
Steven Pinker, MIT:
Words and rules

Item #8574 (18 Mar 1997 09:48) - 8.378, Qs: Lg origins, Armenian, Job lists
 This is more controversial, and I may be surprised at what I hear, but
the definitive statement of this position (Pinker and Bloom) was
co-written by a linguist.

Item #8615 (27 Mar 1997 09:50) - 8.419, FYI: Ebonics article acknowledgments
First, Steve Pinker of MIT, who suggested to me after the business
meeting at the LSA in Chicago that I should try writing a piece such
away and tell you nothing, and after three weeks you take the hint.)
Steve also suggested that I contact _Nature_. Without Steve Pinker's
generously proffered assistance and valuable advice, the article would

Item #8647 (2 Apr 1997 18:38) - 8.451, Sum: Lexical vs. pronominal subjects
 Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 17, 539-558.
Pinker, S. (1984). Language learnability and language development.
(Chapter 4) Harvard University Press.

Item #8680 (7 Apr 1997 22:59) - 8.476, FYI: Motor theory, Conf list, Online course
 language. It also leads to the rejection of the essentially
gradualistic account of language evolution presented by Steven Pinker
in The Language Instinct.

Item #9449 (29 Aug 1997 15:26) - 8.1244, Calls: BLS Conference, Artificial Intelligence
 Invited speakers:
STEPHEN PINKER, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
LEN TALMY, University at Buffalo

Item #9560 (24 Sep 1997 16:20) - 8.1355, Qs: Pitch Metaphor
Steve Pinker has asked me to forward this query to the list:

Item #9670 (10 Oct 1997 20:44) - 8.1465, Confs: Berkeley Linguistics Society
 Invited speakers:
STEPHEN PINKER, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
LEN TALMY, University at Buffalo

Item #9685 (14 Oct 1997 14:50) - 8.1480, Calls: Berkeley Ling Society
 Invited speakers:
STEPHEN PINKER, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
LEN TALMY, University at Buffalo

Item #10037 (22 Dec 1997 22:19) - 8.1832, Disc: Prescriptivism
 teachers in my school are divided over prescriptivism is roughly like this:
those of us who have read Quinn, Pinker, and other debunkers of the language
mavens (Pinker's term) pride ourselves on knowing, e.g. the history of the
slow/slowly set of adjectives/adverbs going back to Old English. We certainly

Item #10109 (16 Jan 1998 16:10) - 9.68, Disc: Prescriptivism
 is the common subject, but the population is mixed - including, say,
linguists, teachers of expository writing, and what Steven Pinker
calls "language mavens." Are there such books? Have there been such