- Hardcover: 498 pages
- Publisher: OUP Oxford; illustrated edition edition (24 Jan 2002)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0198270127
- ISBN-13: 978-0198270126
- Product Dimensions: 25 x 17.9 x 3.1 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 992,553 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
Foundations of Language : Brain, Meaning, Grammar, Evolution
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Review
Jackendoff engages in a moderate and reasonable way with some of the critics of Chomsky's many controversial claims ... well written and provides a valuable and interesting account of the Chomskian approach to linguistics and how Jackendoff thinks this school of thought should reform itself in order to respond better to some of the intellectual challenges that it currently faces. (Applied Cognitive Psychology )
A masterpiece ... The concluding chapters of Foundations of Language concern meaning and reference. These tightly argued sections provide a superb and in many ways novel introduction to lexical and phrasal semantics, and to the relationship between language and the world ... deserves a wide readership. (Nature )
The importance of Foundations of Language is not in its particular proposals. It inheres rather in the fact that the book is a serious attempt to re-integrate theoretical linguistics into cognitive science. (David Adger, Times Literary Supplement )
A book that deserves to be read and reread by anyone seriously interested in the state of the art of research on language. (Andrew Carstairs-McCarthy, American Scientist )
A sweeping survey of every major aspect of language and communication. Jackendoff fundamentally reexamines linguistic theory and our quest to understand human nature and cognition. (Science News )
Few books really deserve the cliché "this should be read by every researcher in the field," but Ray Jackendoff's Foundations of Language does. I think it is the most important book in the sciences of language to have appeared in many years. Jackendoff has long had a genius for seeing both the forest and the trees, and he puts his gift to good use here in a dazzling combination of theory-building and factual integration. The result is a compelling new view of language and its place in the natural world. (Steven Pinker, Professor of Psychology, MIT and author of The Language of Instinct and Words and Rules )
A masterpiece ... The concluding chapters of Foundations of Language concern meaning and reference. These tightly argued sections provide a superb and in many ways novel introduction to lexical and phrasal semantics, and to the relationship between language and the world ... deserves a wide readership. (Nature )
The importance of Foundations of Language is not in its particular proposals. It inheres rather in the fact that the book is a serious attempt to re-integrate theoretical linguistics into cognitive science. (David Adger, Times Literary Supplement )
A book that deserves to be read and reread by anyone seriously interested in the state of the art of research on language. (Andrew Carstairs-McCarthy, American Scientist )
A sweeping survey of every major aspect of language and communication. Jackendoff fundamentally reexamines linguistic theory and our quest to understand human nature and cognition. (Science News )
Few books really deserve the cliché "this should be read by every researcher in the field," but Ray Jackendoff's Foundations of Language does. I think it is the most important book in the sciences of language to have appeared in many years. Jackendoff has long had a genius for seeing both the forest and the trees, and he puts his gift to good use here in a dazzling combination of theory-building and factual integration. The result is a compelling new view of language and its place in the natural world. (Steven Pinker, Professor of Psychology, MIT and author of The Language of Instinct and Words and Rules )
David Adger, Times Literary Supplement
"The importance of Foundations of Language is not in its particular proposals. It inheres rather in the fact that the book is a serious attempt to re-integrate theoretical linguistics into cognitive science."
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Those of us who make it our business to study language often find ourselves in the curious position of trying to persuade the world at large that we are engaged in a technically demanding enterprise. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
Those of us who make it our business to study language often find ourselves in the curious position of trying to persuade the world at large that we are engaged in a technically demanding enterprise. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
26 of 27 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
The Book Description makes some very bold claims about this book, namely that it is a "landmark in linguistics and cognitive science. [..] the most fundamental new thinking in linguistics since Noam Chomsky's Aspects of the Theory of Syntax".
Does Jackendoff live up to these claims? Not entirely, in my view. However, right or wrong, Jackendoff's rich synthesis of some of the distinct traditions of linguistics research is far too interesting to be ignored. For 'post-Chomsky linguisticians', sympathetic to the early Chomsky programme but disillusioned with more recent work, this book is an essential read.
Although linked by a common theme, the book's sections have different orientations. Careful arguments for the overall theme of language involving "multiple parallel generative systems linked by interface components" are accompanied by more speculative thoughts on the evolution of language and proposals for future research.
Although lively and readable, this isn't really a book for someone with no background in generative linguistics (compared to, for example, Pinker's recent "Words and Rules"). But for those with this background, buy and enjoy -- you may want to applaud or protest, but you're unlikely to be indifferent!
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4 reviews
58 of 65 people found the following review helpful
Theoretical linguistics you can sink your teeth into..
26 Sep 2002
Format:Hardcover
On almost every page of this book, I encountered an something which caused my to spontaneously exclaim "exactly!" or "Wow!". I'm wrapping up my masters degree in Linguistics, and had still not found a theoretical framework within which I would have wanted to do research. My exposure to mainstream generative theories (mostly GB and Minimalism) had left me with an empty feeling inside as well as a great number of nagging suspicions that something was fundamentally wrong here. I was starting to turn into a boring anti-Chomskian and was reading up on every lesser-known grammar theory I could find in hopes of finding confirmation of the ideas of language that were starting to take shape in my head. I was also totally perplexed as to how grammar theory was supposed to integrate with psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics, and evolutionary questions.
To make a long story short, reading this book amounted to the experience of having a premier linguist with decades of professional experience at the forefront of the field say: "Your suspicions are justified, you're not the only one with these questions, here are some possible answers...", and then lay out a theory that convinces through its clarity, descriptive and explanatory power, and psychological and neurological plausibility.
A side effect of reading this book is that I realized it is possible to be a nativist and a proponent of UG in spirit while also embracing advances made in connectionist, probabilistic, and statistical approaches to processing and language learning.
Thanks Ray!
To make a long story short, reading this book amounted to the experience of having a premier linguist with decades of professional experience at the forefront of the field say: "Your suspicions are justified, you're not the only one with these questions, here are some possible answers...", and then lay out a theory that convinces through its clarity, descriptive and explanatory power, and psychological and neurological plausibility.
A side effect of reading this book is that I realized it is possible to be a nativist and a proponent of UG in spirit while also embracing advances made in connectionist, probabilistic, and statistical approaches to processing and language learning.
Thanks Ray!
15 of 16 people found the following review helpful
One of the best books I've ever read
18 Jun 2004
Format:Paperback
This is an extremely good book on the various branches of linguistics, and cognitive linguistics, and their interrelations. While this is not my field and I cannot judge how fairly Jackendoff characterizes particular lines of theory and research (mindful here of an earlier review), never have I learned so much from a single book, and I left it with a profound respect for the care with which scholars of language go about their work, and the quality of the ideas resulting therefrom.
29 of 36 people found the following review helpful
Worth browsing through
10 July 2003
Format:Hardcover
But not nearly as good as many people would have believe. Jackendoff has an unquestionably good broad grasp of mainstream contemporary research in grammar and cognitive psychology, and his approach to grammatical theory is way saner than mainstream generative grammar. But he is too dismissive of many things he evidently does not understand, like Cognitive Linguistics (which he calls "combinatorial", overusing the most overused word in this book), or anthropologically-oriented approaches to language. This is too bad, because he talks himself into a terrible solipsistic mess in his chapters on semantics (where he attacks "formal", truth-conditional semantics), which, as far as I can see, the only ideas that can get him out are those he dismisses the most casually.
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