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Review
The book is ... a fascinating introduction to the world of linguistics. ... I found the book extremely interesting, captivating and important. If you are not sure about certain basic facts in the research of natural language, read this book. It will provide you with quite an objective view of the development of the research of language on all aspects. (Linguist List )
A masterpiece (Nature )
I believe this book has the potential to reorient linguistics more decisively than any book since Syntactic Structures shook the discipline almost half a century ago. (Robbins Burling, Language in Society )
An excellent overview of the complexities of language (New Scientist )
A masterpiece (Nature )
I believe this book has the potential to reorient linguistics more decisively than any book since Syntactic Structures shook the discipline almost half a century ago. (Robbins Burling, Language in Society )
An excellent overview of the complexities of language (New Scientist )
New Scientist
"An excellent overview of the complexities of language"
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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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