The Atoms Of Language: The Mind's Hidden Rules Of Grammar.

New York, NY Perseus Group: Basic Books, 2001. Hardcover First Edition; First Printing indicated. First Edition; First Printing indicated. Very Near Fine in Fine DJ: Book shows only minute indications of use: there is a small, very faint smudge at the top edge and the binding is very slightly off square, but remains perfectly secure; the text is clean. The flawless DJ's price is unclipped; mylar-protected. Virtually 'As New'. NOT a Remainder, Book-Club, or Ex-Library. 8vo. 276pp. Hardback with DJ. One way of looking at this book is that it deals with what Mr. Baker calls the "Navajo Code Talker" paradox (that's basically the author's engaging way of introducing his subject): languages on this planet are very much alike (within limits, any human can learn any language) but also very different. The best example of this is the use of the "Navajo Code Talkers" during WWII: those american citizens were enrolled to translate important messages into their own language (Navajo) for communication on the battle front. The expectation was that Navajo being a hard language, Japanese code breakers would find it difficult to "decrypt" the messages. It appears the initiative was highly successful as the Japanese never managed to "break the code", showing that languages can be very different. But the fact that it is possible to translate back and forth between Navajo and English also shows that languages are not completely non-commensurable. So we have a bit of a paradox. Mr. Baker uses throughout the book a chemical analogy: there are basic ingredients in the human psyche which he calls the atoms of language. What we observe in nature are the much more complicated analogues of molecules, with many atoms put together and interacting in interesting and not always predictable ways. So what are Mr. Baker's atoms? They're a bit abstract, even as far as atoms go, since they are really parameters for languages' grammars. If you've got a bit of a computer science mind, this might make some intuitive sense: if I want to produce procedurally an "object" that represents a grammar, what parameters do I need to specify to have a complete description of the grammar? Even If you're not into this kind of thinking the author does quite a bit of competent handholding to get you to the point where you should understand what he's saying. Now what's so interesting about all this? First of all, it appears that parameters are not set randomly. There are certain combinations of parameters that are basically non-sequitur. That's not something that would have been obvious in advance, but it's equally well something that's not particularly easy to interpret. The author actually acknowledges that we don't have the final word on this topic. In summary, this book provides a well-written,engaging introduction to a rather advanced current research topic that opens up exciting possibilities for anyone interested in language or the study of how we communicate. I recommend it highly.