Prescriptive - Descriptive (Language)

Let’s see: Dishonest, deceptive, woefully ignorant, terrible at analyzing, fair memory, avoid discussing, dishonest nature (once again), dishonest nature (for a third time).

Wow…you must be breathing so heavy the windows are probably fogging up.

Have fun.

When you are finished remember to wash.

Notice your deception, Frank. Another fine example of your dishonesty.

Oh my...two more. C'mon, you gotta be finished by now.

It can't finish until you shut your mouth, Frank.

Well then JT--discuss them honestly for us. You have been invited to often enough.

I pointed out the pertinent essay in the Arnold book. Anybody who talks like you do should have it on your shelves.

Would you like to discuss a few things that you generally avoid discussing.

Try to stay in control, JTT...and stay focused. If you lose it, you will get out of the mood. Mood is essential to what you are about. And if you do not stay focused, your mood won't matter.

=========

Fowler is, as you've already been told, terribly out of date.

The problem in reading Fowler is that one never knows which way he is going to vote. Is he going to allow a usage because it is widespread, or is he going to condemn it for the same reason? … The impression the entries give is that Fowler considers to be idiomatic what he himself uses. Usages he does not like are given such labels as 'ugly' (e.g. at historicity) or even 'evil' (e.g. at respectively).



You really are an absolute doofus, Spendius. Consider all the sources that you have completely ignored regarding the specific topic we are on - prescription AS IT RELATES TO LANGUAGE.

You still don't seem to understand the very things you are trying, miserably, to discuss. I've copied one, above, at least twice for you.

I keep asking you how does prescription relate to language. Are you keeping it a secret. It is prescribed that people who continually repeat themselves, words as well as meanings, should, for their own good, be ostracised to a cave in Outer Mongolia.

IMO Fowler is just giving his views. Nobody need accept them because his book is self-evidently written for experienced, grown up, writers. A bit like a Good Food guide. It can be seen as a novel written in an unusual style. It has a beginning, a middle and an end: "a", "metaphor" and "zoology". The metaphor section takes up the centre pages as centre-folds do. It conveys a state of mind which I find amenable. I feel like going to have a potter in the garden when I have read a page or two and that I really ought to have the egg stains cleaned off my cardigan. It's those damn soldiers.

What do you read for?

I might be out of order, JT, or an ignorant doofus, but I consider that to be complete tripe.

It starts with a nonsense and goes downhill after that. How anybody could write stuff like that and not expect to be laughed out of court beats me.

He's a writer like I am the Bay of Biscay.

Assertion = A

A1. [true] I might be out of order, JT, or an ignorant doofus,

A2. [false] but I consider that to be complete tripe.

A3. [false] It starts with a nonsense and goes downhill after that.

A4. [true] How anybody could write stuff like that and not expect to be laughed out of court beats me.

Pretty much everything discussed on language 'beats you', Spendi.

A5. [false] He's a writer like I am the Bay of Biscay.

A5 corrected [true] He's a writer, you, Spendi are an ignorant doofus.

You are so ignorant in fact that you use 'was' where clearly the subjunctive 'were' is required. Then, ignorant doofus that you are, you go on to defend that use by saying that you like it. How can you expect the tenets of language to be upheld, how can you expect our young people to use correct and proper English when an ignorant doofus like you spreads this type of nonsense around?

You are doubly ignorant because you use 'nonsense' as a countable noun 'a nonsense' when everyone knows that nonsense is an uncountable noun.

If you will insist on addressing the thread as if it is peopled by the provincial commonality there is little I can do about it.

Your guy can't write for toffee. No writer of style or taste would ever dream of putting that dire stuff out under his or her name. He also must think he is addressing the rubes.

More silly Spendius assertions. Stroke harder, Spendius. You're certainly in the running with Oralboy.

It's truly ironic that you dare to bring 'assertions' up when that's all you ever are, that's all you ever do. You have not addressed one word that S Pinker said. You never address what I said in the last post or any post. You just keep throwing out names of famous writers, trying to trick folks into thinking you've read them.

And if you have, precious little has sunk into that blob of gray matter between your ears.

You keep arguing about things you know little about, things you admit you know little about. Just what kind of damn fool are you?

That is nonsense.

And his choice of split-infinitives and the "because" as his telling examples straight away assures the reader that he is not expected to have much education.

I can't be bothered going through it line by line--it's drivel. From first to last.

It's insulting.

Another idiotic Spendius assertion.

Why is it nonsense, Spendius?

I stopped it about half way through, O mighty Fallacious Assertion Idiot.

===================

Curriculum Vitae
Steven Pinker

Department of Psychology
Harvard University
William James Hall 970
Cambridge, MA 02l38
33 Kirkland St.
Office: 617-495-0831
Fax: 617-495-3278
Internet address: pinker at wjh period Harvard period edu
Web site: http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu

Biographical Information

Born September 18, 1954, Montreal, Canada
U. S. Citizen

Education

Doctor of Philosophy (Experimental Psychology), Harvard University, 1979.
Bachelor of Arts (First Class Honors in Psychology), McGill University, 1976.
Diploma of College Studies, Dawson College, 1971.


Academic Positions

2008-2013 Harvard College Professor, Harvard University
2003- Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology, Harvard University
2000-2003 Peter de Florez Professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
1994-99 Director, McDonnell-Pew Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at MIT
1989-2000 Professor, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
1985-94 Co-Director, Center for Cognitive Science, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology
1985-89 Associate Professor, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
1982-85 Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
1981-82 Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, Stanford University
1980-81 Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, Harvard University
1979-80 Postdoctoral Fellow, Center for Cognitive Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Honors and Awards

General:
Foreign Policy Top Global Thinkers of 2010.
Innovation for Humanity Prize, La Ciudad de las Ideas, Mexico, 2008.
Honorary President, Canadian Psychological Association, 2008.
Prospect and Foreign Policy, “The World’s Top 100 Public Intellectuals,” 2005, 2008.
Humanist of the Year, American Humanist Association, 2006.
Communication and Leadership Award, Toastmasters International (District 31), 2006.
02138 Magazine: “The Harvard 100: The Most Influential Alumni,” 2006.
Time 100: “The 100 Most Influential People in the World Today,” 2004.
The Emperor’s New Clothes Award, Freedom from Religion Foundation, 2004.
Humanist Laureate, International Academy of Humanism, 2001.
Golden Plate Award, American Academy of Achievement, 1999.
Newsweek One Hundred Americans for the Next Century, 1995.
Esquire Register of Outstanding Men and Women Under Forty, 1986.

Honorary Doctorates:
Doctor of Philosophy honoris causa, University of Tromsø, Norway, 2008.
Doctor of Humane Letters, Albion College, 2007.
Doctor of Science honoris causa, University of Newcastle, 2005.
Doctor of the University honoris causa, University of Surrey, 2003.
Doctor Philosophiae honoris causa, Tel Aviv University, 2003
Doctor of Science honoris causa, McGill University, 1999.

Research:
George A. Miller Prize, Cognitive Neuroscience Society, 2010.
Henry Dale Prize, The Royal Institution of Great Britain, 2004.
Troland Research Award, National Academy of Sciences, April 1993.
Boyd R. McCandless Young Scientist Award, Division of Developmental Psychology, American Psychological Association, 1986.
Distinguished Scientific Award for an Early Career Contribution to Psychology, American Psychological Association, 1984.

Books: The Language Instinct
Public Interest Award, Linguistics Society of America, 1997.
William James Book Prize, American Psychological Association, 1995.
New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice: Ten Best Books of 1994.
Finalist, Rhone-Poulenc Science Book Prize, 1994.
One Hundred Best Science Books of the Century, American Scientist.
Honorable Mention, Best Books of the 1990s, Lingua Franca

Books: How the Mind Works
William James Book Prize, American Psychological Association, 1999.
Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Science and Technology, 1998.
Finalist, Pulitzer Prize in Nonfiction, 1998.
Ten Best Books of the Decade / One Hundred Best Books of the Century, Amazon.com, 1999.
Good Book Guide Award: Best Science Book of 1998.
Finalist, Rhone-Poulenc Science Book Prize, 1999.
Finalist, National Book Critics' Circle Award, 1998.
Finalist, Winship Book Prize, PEN New England, 1998.
Literary Lights, Boston Public Library, 1998.
Books to Remember (25 best of 1997), New York Public Library, 1998.
Best Books of 2002, Publishers Weekly
Honored Author, Newton Public Library, 2000.
Great Brain Books, Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives.

Books: The Blank Slate
50 Psychology Classics, T. Butler-Bowdon, Brealey Publishing, 2007
Kistler Book Award, Foundation for the Future, 2005
William James Book Prize, American Psychological Association, 2003
Eleanor Maccoby Book Award, American Psychological Association, 2003
Literary Lights, Boston Public Library, 2005.
Finalist, Pulitzer Prize in Nonfiction, 2003.
Finalist, Aventis Science Book Prize, 2003.
Book of the Year 2003, Yorkshire Post
Best Books of 2002: amazon.com, Borders Bookstores, The Evening Standard, The Globe and Mail, The Independent, The Los Angeles Times, New Statesman, New York Times (“Notable Books”), Publishers Weekly, The Spectator, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The Telegraph, Times Literary Supplement

Books: The Stuff of Thought
Editors’ Picks: Ten Best Science Books of 2007, amazon.com
Outstanding Academic Titles of 2008, Choice (magazine for academic libraries)

Teaching:
Harvard College Professorship, 2008-2013.
Harvard Yearbook, Favorite Professors, Classes of 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011.
School of Science Teaching Prize for Excellence in Undergraduate Education, MIT, 2001
Margaret MacVicar Faculty Fellow, MIT, 2000-2003.
Graduate Student Council Teaching Award, MIT, 1986.

Essays:
The Best American Essays 2010 (Christopher Hitchens, Ed.), “My Genome, Myself”
The Best American Science Writing 2010 (Jerome Groopman, Ed.), “My Genome, Myself.”
Sidney Hook Award, best essays of 2005 (from David Brooks’ New York Times column), “The Science of Gender and Science” (with Elizabeth Spelke).
The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2003 (Richard Dawkins, Ed.), “The Blank Slate.”



Elected Fellowships in Scholarly Societies:
Fellow, Linguistics Society of America, 2007- .
Herbert Simon Fellow, The American Academy of Political and Social Science, 2006- .
Fellow, Académie Internationale de Philosophie des Sciences, 2007- .
Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1998-.
Fellow, Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, 2000-.
Fellow, Neurosciences Research Program, 1995-2002.
Fellow, American Psychological Association, 1992- .
Fellow, Division of Experimental Psychology, American Psychological Association, 1991- .
Fellow, American Psychological Society, 1990- .
Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1987- .
Distinguished Fellow, New England Institute for Cognitive Science and Evolutionary Psychology, 2001-2004.
Fellow-elect, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford, CA, 1981- .


Extramural Grants

Google University Research Awards, “The Bibliome: Uncovering the Dynamics of the Human Past,” 2009-2011.
National Institutes of Health, “Development and Neural Bases of Words and Rules,” 2000-2008.
MIT Classes of ’51, ’55, and ’72 Funds for Excellence in Teaching and Educational Innovation, “Computer-Based Multimedia Demonstrations in Psychology,” 2000-2001.
National Institutes of Health, “Language Learnability and Language Development”, 1983-2000 (competitively renewed 1986, 1989, 1994).
National Institute of Mental Health Training Grant, “Development of Cognition,” 1997-2002 (PI 2001-2002).
National Institute of Mental Health Training Grant, “Visual Cognition,” 1998-2003 (PI 1998-2001).
American Council of Learned Societies/Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst, German American Collaborative Research Grant, “Symbolic Representation and Network Models: The Psycholinguistic Basis of Inflectional Morphology,1992-1993.
National Science Foundation Research Training Grant, “Language Acquisition and Computation” (1 of 15 Co-Investigators), 1991-1996.
McDonnell-Pew Program in Cognitive Neuroscience grant, “From Perception to Action,” 1990-1998 (competitively renewed 1994).
National Science Foundation, “Inflection as a Model System for the Psychology of Language,” 1991-1994.
National Institutes of Health, “Development of Cognition”, program training grant (1 of 6 Co-Investigators), 1987-1992.
National Science Foundation, “The Mental Representation of 3-D Space and Objects, 1986-89.
National Science Foundation, “Language Learnability and Language Development”, 1982-85.
National Science Foundation, “The Mental Representation of 3-D Space”, 1981-83.


Other Positions

Visiting Professor, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center/Harvard Medical School, 2007
Honorary Visiting Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Auckland, New Zealand, 2001-2007
Visiting Scholar, Departments of Psychology and Linguistics, University of California, Santa Barbara, 1995-96.
Faculty, McDonnell Summer Institute in Cognitive Neuroscience, 1990, 1993, 1994
Visiting Scholar, Cognitive Development Unit, Medical Research Council, London, UK, 1988.
Visiting Scholar, Department of Psychology, Harvard University, 1987-88.
Visiting Scholar, Department of Psychology, Brandeis University, 1987-88.
Consultant, Cognitive and Instructional Sciences Group, Xerox Corporation Palo Alto Research Centers, 1981-82.


Major Professional Activities

Chair, Usage Panel, American Heritage Dictionary, 2008- .
Contributing Editor, The New Republic, 2008- .
Contributing Editor, Seed, 2006- .
Executive Associate Editor, Cognition: International Journal of Cognitive Science, 1985-2006.
Executive Council, Human Behavior and Evolution Society, 2006- .
Member-at-Large, Section on Linguistics and Language Science, American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2005-2009.
Jury, Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Excellence in the Literature of Diversity, 2002- .
Membership Section Panel, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2007- .

Editorial Boards of Scientific and Scholarly Journals

134, 2008- .
American Journal of Bioethics: Neuroscience
Canadian Psychology, 2003-.
Cognition, 1982-2008.
Cognitive Science, 1991-1996.
Daedalus, 2002- .
Earth & Sky, 2007- .
English Linguistics, 2003- .
Evolution and Human Behavior, 1998- .
Evolutionary Psychology, 2001- .
Intercultural Pragmatics, 2003- .
International Journal of Bilingualism. 1996- .
Journal of Child Language, 1994-2004.
Journal of Cognition and Culture, 2000- .
Journal of Social, Evolutionary, and Cultural Psychology, 2008- .
Language Acquisition, 1990-2004; Advisory Board, 2004- .
Language and Dialogue, 2010- .
Mind & Society, 2002- .
PLoS ONE, 2006- .
The Evolutionary Review, 2008- .
The Humanist, 2007- .
The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief, 2002-.
The Scientific Study of Literature, 2010-.
Theoria et Historia Scientiarum: An International Journal for Interdisciplinary Studies, 2000- .
Trends in Cognitive Science, 2000-2010.
Words, 2002- .


Advisory Boards of Scientific and Scholarly Organizations

American Council on Science and Health, 2008- .
Campus Freedom Network, 2009- .
Cognitive Neuroscience Society, 1994- .
Center for Research on Language, Mind, and Brain, McGill University, 2003- .
Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, 1979- .
Cybereditions, Advisory Board, 1998- .
The Decade of Behavior, 2003-2005
E. O. Wilson Foundation, 2007- .
Endangered Language Fund, 1998- .
English for the Children, 2001-2004.
Executive Board, Society for Language Development, 2003- .
Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, 2007- .
Paul G. Allen Institute for Brain Science, 2001- .
Institute for Science and Human Values, 2010- .
International Academy of Humanism, 2010- .
International Association for the Study of Attention and Performance, 1992- .
Naturalism Research Project, Center for Inquiry.
Office of Public Policy, Center for Inquiry, Washington DC, 2006- .
Origins Project, Arizona State University, 2009- .
Science and Entertainment Exchange, The National Academy of Sciences, 2008- .
Rock-It Science, 2008- .
Secular Coalition for America
Science for Peace, 2009- .
Society for Evolutionary Analysis in Law, 2009- .
Student Achievement and Advocacy Services, 2002- .
World Science Festival, New York, 2006- .

Selected Past Professional Activities

Linguistics, Language, and the Public Interest Award Committee, Linguistics Society of America, 2006-2007.
Chair, Eleanor Maccoby Book Prize Committee, Division of Developmental Psychology, American Psychological Association, 2004.
Panel on Integrative Cognitive Science, National Science Foundation, 2003.
Testimony, President’s Council on Bioethics, 2003, 2008.
Grant review panel, Program in Biological Anthropology, National Science Foundation, 2002.
Senior Independent Advisory Panel, Biopsychology of Humane Leadership Project, Center for Positive Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, 2000.
Scientific Advisor, Nova/WGBH, 7-part television series on Evolution, 1998-2001.
Panel on the Bioethics of Brain Imaging, Center for Bioethics, University of Pennsylvania, 2000-2002.
Usage Panel, American Heritage Dictionary, 1995-2008.
Selection Committee, Centennial Fellowship in Human Cognition, McDonnell Foundation, 1998.
Grant review panel, Learning and Information Systems, National Science Foundation, 1997.
Academic Editorial Board, MIT Press, 1996-2001.
Section Editor for Language, M. S. Gazzaniga’s The Cognitive Neurosciences, MIT Press, 1995.
Electorate Nominating Committee, Section on Linguistics and Language Science, American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1994-1999.
Consultant, Boston University Conference on Language Development, 1984-1997.

Reviewing

Journals: American Anthropologist, American Psychologist, Applied Psycholinguistics, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, Behavioral Neuroscience, Canadian Journal of Psychology, Child Development, Cognition, Cognitive Psychology, Cognitive Science, Current Biology, Current Directions in Psychological Science, Development and Psychopathology, Developmental Psychology, Evolution and Human Behavior, Human Nature, Journal of the American Statistical Association, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition, Journal of Linguistics, Journal of Mental Imagery, Journal of Personality, Journal of Theoretical Biology, Language, Language Acquisition, Language and Cognitive Processes, Language Learning and Development, Lingua, Linguistic Inquiry, Linguistics and Philosophy, Memory and Cognition, Mind and Language, Nature, Nature Genetics, Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, Neuron, Neuropsychologia, Parenting: Science and Practice, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Perspectives on Psychological Science, Proceedings of the Royal Society, Psychological Bulletin, Psychological Review, Psychological Science, Psycholoquy, Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, Science, Spatial Vision, Synthèse, The Skeptic, Trends In Cognitive Science.
Publishers: Blackwell, MIT Press, Cambridge University Press, Free Press, Harvard University Press, Harvester-Wheatsheaf, MIT Press, Oxford University Press, Prentice-Hall, Princeton University Press, Reidel, Rowman & Littlefield, Scientific American Books, University of Arizona Press, University of California Press, University of Chicago Press, Yale University Press.
Funding Agencies: Air Force Office of Scientific Research, John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, John and Catherine Macarthur Foundation, Leverhulme Trust (UK), Medical Research Council (Canada), Medical Research Council (UK), National Institutes of Health, National Humanities Council, National Research Council (New Zealand), National Science Foundation, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (Canada), Russell Sage Foundation.

Publications: Books

Pinker, S. (1984) Language Learnability and Language Development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Reprinted with new introduction, 1996.
Pinker, S. (Ed.). (1985) Visual Cognition. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press/Bradford Books.
Pinker, S. & J. Mehler (Eds.) (1988). Connections and Symbols. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press/Bradford Books.
Pinker, S. (1989) Learnability and Cognition: The Acquisition of Argument Structure. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press/Bradford Books.
Levin, B. & S. Pinker (Eds.) (1992) Lexical and Conceptual Semantics. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.
Pinker, S. (1994) The Language Instinct. New York: HarperCollins; London: Penguin. Translations published in Arabic, Basque, Bulgarian, Chinese (Taiwan), Czech, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Spanish. Translations pending in Chinese (China), Danish, Hebrew, Slovenian. New edition with postscript and update, HarperCollins, 2007.
Pinker, S. (1997) How the Mind Works. New York: Norton; London: Penguin. Translations published in Chinese (Taiwan), Dutch, German, Korean, Portuguese (Brazil), Hebrew, French, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Romanian, Spanish. Translations pending in Bulgarian, Chinese (China), Slovenian, Turkish. New edition with foreword, Norton, 2009.
Pinker, S. (1999) Words and Rules: The Ingredients of Language. New York: HarperCollins. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. Translations published in German and Slovak. Translation pending in Korean. New edition with postscript and update, HarperCollins, 2011.
Pinker, S. (2002) The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature. New York: Viking; London: Penguin. Translations published in Dutch, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, and Turkish. Translations pending in Chinese (China), Chinese (Taiwan), and Croatian.
Pinker, S. (Ed.). (2004) The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2004. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Pinker, S. (2005) Hotheads (excerpt from How the Mind Works). London: Penguin Books.
Pinker, S. (2007) The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature. New York: Viking; London: Penguin. Translations published in Dutch, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Spanish, and Portuguese (Brazil). Translations pending in Bulgarian, Chinese (China), Finnish, German, Greek, Korean, Russian, and Slovenian.
Pinker, S. (2008) The seven words you can’t say on television (excerpt from The Stuff of Thought). London: Penguin Books.
Pinker, S. (2011) The Better Angels of our Nature: The Decline of Violence and its Psychological Roots. New York: Viking. London: Penguin. Translations pending in Spanish and German.


Publications: Articles in Scholarly Journals

Millenson, J. R., Allen, R. B. & Pinker, S. (1977). Adjunctive drinking during variable and random-interval food reinforcement schedules. Animal Learning and Behavior, 5, 285-290.
Bregman, A. S. & Pinker, S. (1978). Auditory streaming and the building of timbre. Canadian Journal of Psychology, 32, 19-31.
Pinker, S. & Kosslyn, S. M. (1978). The representation and manipulation of three-dimensional space in mental images. Journal of Mental Imagery, 1, 69-84.
Pinker, S. (1979). Formal models of language learning. Cognition, 7, 217-283. Reprinted (1994) in N. Sheehy & T. Chapman (Eds.), Cognitive Science. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing.
Pinker, S. & Birdsong, D. (1979). Speakers’ sensitivity to rules of frozen word order. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 18, 497-508.
Kosslyn, S. M., Pinker, S., Smith, G. E., Shwartz, S. P. (1979). On the demystification of mental imagery. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 1, 535-581. Reprinted (1981) in N. Block (Ed.), Imagery (pp. 131-150). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1981.
Pinker, S. (1980). Mental imagery and the third dimension. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 109, 254-371.
Pinker, S. & Finke, R. A. (1980). Emergent two-dimensional patterns in images rotated in depth. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 6, 244-264.
Pinker, S. (1981). On the acquisition of grammatical morphemes. Journal of Child Language, 8, 477-484.
Finke, R. A. & Pinker, S. (1982). Spontaneous mental image scanning in mental extrapolation. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 8, 142-147.
Finke, R. A. & Pinker, S. (1983). Directional scanning of remembered visual patterns. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 9, 398-410.
Rosenblum, T. & Pinker, S. (1983). Word magic revisited: Monolingual and bilingual preschoolers’ understanding of the word-object relationship. Child Development, 54, 773-780. Reprinted (1987) in M. B. Franklin & S. S. Barten (Eds.), Child language: A book of readings. New York: Oxford University Press.
Pinker, S. (1984). Visual cognition: an introduction. Cognition, 18, 1-63.
Pinker, S. Choate, P., & Finke, R. A. (1984). Mental extrapolation in patterns constructed from memory. Memory and Cognition, 12, 207-218.
Downing, C. J. & Pinker, S. (1985). The spatial structure of visual attention. In M. Posner and O. Marin (Eds.), Attention and Performance XI: Mechanisms of attention and visual search. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Stromswold, K., Pinker, S., and Kaplan, R. M. (1985) Cues for understanding the passive voice. Papers and Reports in Child Language1985.
Pinker, S., Lebeaux, D. S., & Frost, L. A. (1987) Productivity and constraints in the acquisition of the passive. Cognition, 26, 195-267.
Pinker, S. & Prince, A. (1988) On language and connectionism: Analysis of a parallel distributed processing model of language acquisition. Cognition, 28, 73-193. Reprinted in S. Pinker & J. Mehler (Eds.) (1988) Connections and symbols. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Prince, A. & Pinker, S. (1988) Rules and connections in human language. Trends in Neurosciences, 11, 195-202. Reprinted (1989) in R. G. Morris (Ed.), Parallel Distributed Processing: Implications for psychology and neurobiology. New York: Oxford University Press. Reprinted (1993) in J. Higginbotham (Ed.), Language and cognition. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell. Reprinted (1999) in R. Cummins & D. D. Cummins (Eds.), Minds, brains, and computers. New York: Oxford University Press.
Prince, A., & Pinker, S. (1989) Wickelphone ambiguity. Cognition, 30, 189-190.
Tarr, M. J. & Pinker, S. (1989) Mental rotation and orientation-dependence in shape recognition. Cognitive Psychology, 21, 233-282.
Gropen, J., Pinker, S., Hollander, M., Goldberg, R. & Wilson, R. (1989) The learnability and acquisition of the dative alternation in English. Language, 65, 203-257.
Finke, R. A., Pinker, S., & Farah, M. J. (1989) Reinterpreting visual patterns in mental imagery. Cognitive Science, 13, 51-78.
Tarr, M. J. & Pinker, S. (1990) When does human object recognition use a viewer-centered reference frame? Psychological Science, 1, 253-256.
Pinker, S. & Bloom, P. (1990) Natural language and natural selection. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 13, 707-784. Reprinted in J. Barkow, L. Cosmides, & J. Tooby (Eds.) (1991), The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture. New York: Oxford University Press. Reprinted in Finnish in Psykologia, 31(4), s1-s20, 31(5), s1-s23. Reprinted (2010) in F. Ferretti (Ed.), Classics in Contemporary Philosophy of Mind and Language. Rome: Armando Editore.
Gropen, J., Pinker, S, Hollander, M., & Goldberg, R. (1991) Syntax and semantics in the acquisition of locative verbs. Journal of Child Language, 18, 115-151.
Kim, J. J., Pinker, S., Prince, A, & Prasada, S. (1991) Why no mere mortal has ever flown out to center field. Cognitive Science, 15, 173-218.
Gropen, J., Pinker, S, Hollander, J., & Goldberg, R. (1991) Affectedness and direct objects: The role of lexical semantics in the acquisition of verb argument structure. Cognition, 41, 153-195. Reprinted (1992) in B. Levin & S. Pinker (Eds.), Lexical and conceptual semantics. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.
Pinker, S. (1991) Rules of language. Science, 253, 530-535. Reprinted (1993) in P. Bloom (Ed.), Language acquisition: Core readings. London: Harvester-Wheatsheaf. Reprinted (1996) in H. Geirsson & M. Losonsky (Eds.), Readings in language and mind. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell. Reprinted in P. Thagard (Ed.), Mind readings: Introductory selections on cognitive science. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Reprinted in A. Clark & J. Toribio (Eds.), Artificial intelligence and cognitive science: Conceptual issues. Hamden, CT: Garland. Reprinted (1999) in A. Slater & D. Muir (Eds.), The Blackwell reader in developmental psychology. Oxford: Blackwell. Reprinted (2002) in G. T. M. Altmann (Ed.), Psycholinguistics: Critical concepts. London: Routledge. Reprinted (2009) in D. Shanks (Ed.), Psychology of Learning. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Tarr, M. & Pinker, S. (1991) Orientation-dependent mechanisms in shape recognition: Further issues. Psychological Science, 2, 207-209.
Marcus, G., Pinker, S., Ullman, M., Hollander, M., Rosen, T. J. & Xu, F. (1992) Overregularization in language acquisition. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 57 (4, Serial No. 228).
Prasada, S. & Pinker, S. (1993) Generalizations of regular and irregular morphology. Language and Cognitive Processes, 8, 1-56.
Cave, K. R., Pinker, S., Giorgi, L., Thomas, C., Heller, L., Wolfe, J. M., & Lin, H. (1994) The representation of location in visual images. Cognitive Psychology, 26, 1-32.
Pinker, S. (1994) How could a child use verb syntax to learn verb semantics? Lingua, 92, 377-410. Reprinted in L. Gleitman and B. Landau (Eds.), (1994) The acquisition of the lexicon. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Kim, J. J., Marcus, G. F., Pinker, S., Hollander, M., & Coppola, M. (1994) Sensitivity of children’s inflection to morphological structure. Journal of Child Language, 21, 173-209. Reprinted in K. Perera, G. Collis, & B. Richards (Eds.), Growing points in child language. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Pinker, S. (1994) On language (interview). Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 6, 91-96. Reprinted (1997) as “Evolutionary Perspectives” in M. Gazzaniga (Ed.), Conversations in the cognitive neurosciences. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Marcus, G. F., Brinkmann, U., Clahsen, H., Wiese, R., & Pinker, S. (1995) German inflection: The exception that proves the rule. Cognitive Psychology, 29, 189-256.
Xu, F. & Pinker, S. (1995) Weird past tense forms. Journal of Child Language, 22, 531-556.
Pinker, S., Prince, A. (1996), The nature of human concepts: evidence from an unusual source. Communication and Cognition, 29, 307-361. Reprinted (1999) in P. Van Loocke (Ed.), The nature, representation and evolution of concepts. London: Routledge. Reprinted (1999) in R. Jackendoff, P. Bloom, and K. Wynn (Eds.), Language, logic, and concepts: Essays in memory of John Macnamara. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Ullman, M., Corkin, S., Coppola, M., Hickok, G., Growdon, J. H., Koroshetz, W. J., & Pinker, S. (1997) A neural dissociation within language: Evidence that the mental dictionary is part of declarative memory, and that grammatical rules are processed by the procedural system. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 9, 289-299. Reprinted in Bánréti Zoltán (Ed.). Nyelvi Struktúrák és az Agy: Neurolingvisztikai Tanulmányok. Hungary.
Pinker, S. (1997) Words and rules in the human brain. Nature, 387, 547-548.
Pinker, S. (1998) Obituary: Roger Brown. Cognition, 66, 199-213.
Pinker, S. (1998) Words and rules. Lingua, 106, 219-242. Reprinted in A. Sorace, C. Heycock, and R. Shillcock (Eds.), Generative approaches to language acquisition. Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Pinker, S. (1998) Out of the minds of babes. Science 283, 40-41.
Pinker, S. (1999) How the mind works. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 882, 119-127. Reprinted (2002) in Chesworth, A., Hill, S., Lipovsky, K., Snyder, E., & Chesworth, W. Darwin Day Collection 1: The Single Best Idea, Ever. Albuquerque, NM: Tangled Bank Press. Reprinted in Danish in Kognition & Paedagogik, 2004.
Berent, I., Pinker, S., & Shimron, J. (1999) Default nominal inflection in Hebrew: Evidence for mental variables. Cognition 72, 1-44.
Pinker, S. (2000) Survival of the clearest. Nature, 401, 442-443.
Pinker, S. (2001) Talk of genetics and vice-versa. Nature, 413, 465-466.
Pinker, S. & Ullman, M. (2002) The past and future of the past tense. Trends in Cognitive Science, 6, 456-463.
Pinker, S. & Ullman, M. (2002) Structure and combination, not gradedness, is the issue (Reply to McClelland and Patterson). Trends in Cognitive Science, 6, 472-474.
Berent, I., Pinker, S., & Shimron, J. (2002) The nature of regularity and irregularity: Evidence from Hebrew nominal inflection. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 31(5), 459-502
Pinker, S. & Ullman, M. (2003) Beyond one model per phenomenon (reply to Seidenberg and Ramscar). Trends in Cognitive Science, 7, 108-109.
Pinker, S. (2004) Author’s response: Review symposium on “The Blank Slate.” Metascience, 13, 44-51.
Pinker, S. (2004) Clarifying the logical problem of language acquisition. Journal of Child Language, 31, 949-953.
Pinker, S. (2004) Why nature and nurture won’t go away. Daedalus, 133, Fall, 5-17. Reprinted (2006) in Portuguese in INTERthesis, 3, 1. Reprinted (2007) in Danish in Kognition & Pedagogik, 64, 22-39. Reprinted (2009) in Serbian in Themes, XXXIII, 1109-1125.
Pinker, S. & Jackendoff, R. (2005) What’s special about the human language faculty? Cognition, 95, 201-236.
Pinker, S. (2005) So how does the mind work? Mind and Language, 20, 1-24.
Pinker, S. (2005) A reply to Jerry Fodor on how the mind works. Mind and Language, 20, 33-38.
Jackendoff, R. & Pinker, S. (2005) The nature of the language faculty and its implications for the evolution of language. Cognition, 97, 211-225.
Berent, I., Pinker, S., Tzelgov, J., Bibi, U., & Goldfarb, L. (2005) Computation of semantic number from morphological information. Journal of Memory and Language, 53, 342-358..
Pinker, S. (2006) Kidding ourselves. The Massachusetts Review. Reprinted in J. Rosner (Ed.), The Messy Self. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers.
Pinker, S. (2006) The blank slate. The General Psychologist, 41, 1-8.
Sahin, N., Pinker, & Halgren, E.. (2006) Abstract grammatical processing of nouns and verbs in Broca's Area: Evidence from fMRI. Cortex, 42, 540-562.
Pinker, S. (2007) Toward a consilient study of literature (review of J. Gottschall & D. Sloan Wilson, “The Literary Animal: Evolution and the Nature of Narrative”). Philosophy and Literature, 31, 161-177.
Berent, I., Pinker, S., & Ghavami, G. (2007) The dislike of regular plurals in compounds: Phonological familiarity or morphological constraint? The Mental Lexicon, 2, 129-181.
Pinker, S. (2007) Language as an adaptation by natural selection. Acta Psychologica Sinica, 39, 431-438.
Pinker, S. (2007) The evolutionary social psychology of off-record indirect speech acts. Intercultural Pragmatics, 4(4), 437-461. Reprinted (2009) in International Journal on Humanistic Ideology, 2, 59-89.
Pinker, S., Nowak, M., A. & Lee, J. J. (2008). The logic of indirect speech. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA, 105(3), 833-838.
Berent, I. & Pinker, S. (2008) Compound formation is constrained by morphology: A reply to Seidenberg, MacDonald, & Haskell. The Mental Lexicon, 3, 176-187.
Sahin, N. T., Pinker, S., Cash, S. S., Schomer, D., & Halgren, E. (2009) Sequential processing of lexical, grammatical, and articulatory information within Broca’s area. Science, 326, 445-449.
Pinker, S. & Jackendoff, R. (2009) The reality of a universal language faculty (commentary on Evans & Levinson’s “The Myth of Language Universals”). Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 32, 465-466.
Huang, Y.-T. & Pinker, S. (2010) Lexical semantics and irregular inflection. Language and Cognitive Processes, 25, 1-51.
Lee, J. J., & Pinker, S. (2010) Rationales for indirect speech: The theory of the strategic speaker. Psychological Review.
Pinker, S. (2010) The cognitive niche: Coevolution of intelligence, sociality, and language. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA, 107, 8893-899.. Reprinted in J. Alvise & F. Ayala (Eds.), In the Light of Evolution. vol. 4. Washington, CD: National Academies Press. Reprinted in Letras de Hoje (Brazil).
Pinker, S. (2010) Representations and decision rules in the theory of self-deception (commentary on W. von Hippel & R. Trivers’ “The evolution and psychology of self-deception,” Behavioral and Brain Sciences.
Michel, J.-B., Shen, Y. K., Aiden, A. P., Veres, A., Gray, M. K., The_Google_Books_Team, Pickett, J. P., Hoiberg, D., Clancy, D. ,Norvig, P., Orwant, J., Pinker, S., Nowak, M., & Lieberman-Aiden, E. (2011). Quantitative analysis of culture using millions of digitized books. Science, 331, 176-182.
Senghas, A., Kim, J. J., & Pinker, S. (in revision) The plurals-in-compounds effect.
Ganger, J., Pinker, S., Chawla, S. & Birk, J. (in revision) A twin study of lexical and grammatical development: English past tense and past tense overregularization.

What???!!! The FAI [Falllacious Assertion Idiot], the guy who admits that he knows nothing of how language works doesn't want to take on things that he hasn't the foggiest notion about. I'm shocked!

You're insulting, Spendi, not only to science but to yourself.

Because devices have nothing to express. They are inanimate objects.

No wonder we are bankrupt.