An invitation to cognitive science. Volume 1: Language Ed. by Lila R. Gleitman and Mark Liberman (review)

Abstract

862LANGUAGE, VOLUME 73, NUMBER 4 (1997) This summary so far suggests a division between form and function in this text which is perhaps misleading. In reviewing how slang is used, E does in fact note some formal characteristics . Collegiate slang begins conversations, for example, with its own forms of address (e.g., roomer). Especially interesting are E's observations about 'the frequent use of the demonstrative that before slang nouns, [which] is consistent with the social function of slang, particularly when that precedes a noun with unfavorable connotations' (99). The last hundred pages of the book include several appendices, two of them listing the most frequent terms from E's own surveys and another listing collegiate slang from the turn of the century (which suggests, ominously, that students a hundred years ago were more interested in academics than they are now). Also included are a glossary of slang terms used in this text, an index of terms, a general index, and an ample bibliography. E's book is important reading for specialists since it presents some important new research and offers an excellent review of the literature. But it is also accessible to the general reader. It will make a fine auxiliary text in a sociolinguistics course. REFERENCES Cameron, Deborah. 1992. Naming of parts: Gender, culture, and terms for the penis among American college students. American Speech 67.367-82. Dumas, Bethany K., and Jonathon Lighter. 1978. Is slang a word for linguists? American Speech 53.5-18. Eble, Connie. 1989. College slang 101. Georgetown, CT : Spectacle Press. Gleason, H. A., Jr. 1961. An introduction to descnptive linguistics, rev. edn. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. Labov, William. 1972. Some principles of linguistic methodology. Language in Society 1.97-120. Lighter, Jonathon. 1994. Random House historical dictionary of Amencan slang. Vol. 1, A-G. New York: Random House. Sledd, James. 1965. On not teaching English usage. English Journal 54 698-703. Wentworth, Harold B., and Stuart Berg Flexner. 1960. Dictionary of American slang. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell. Whitman, Walt. 1885. Slang in America. The collected writings of Walt Whitman: Prose works 1892, ed. by Floyd Stovall (1964). New York: New York University Press. Department of English Western Illinois University Macomb, Illinois 61455 [mftcf@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu] An invitation to cognitive science. Volume 1: Language. 2nd edn. Ed. by Lila R. Gleitman and Mark Liberman. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995. Pp. xxxviii, 455. Reviewed by D. Terence Langendoen, University ofArizona This is the second edition of the first volume in a four-volume set under the general editorship of Daniel N. Osherson; the others are titled Visual cognition, Thinking, and Conceptualfoundations . It is a second edition in name only. Its fourteen chapters are entirely new and were chosen 'to reveal why language holds a special place in cognitive science' (xix). The book is suitable as a text in an undergraduate or graduate course or seminar on language and cognitive science for students who have already been introduced to the basic concepts of phonology, syntax, and semantics. Each chapter includes suggestions for further reading, all but two of which are annotated , and problems (but no answers). Several chapters also contain questions for further thought designed for students with the requisite background knowledge (e.g. Prolog programming) or for individual and group projects. Half of the chapters are devoted to topics in grammatical analysis, and the other half to psycholinguistics. Each grammar chapter describes a problem and works toward a solution which REVIEWS863 attempts to engage the reader in the process. The three most successful of these are Ch. 3, 'The sounds of Mawu words' by Mark Liberman, which leads the reader step by step through the intricacies of word formation in Mawu, a Manding language of Ivory Coast, to a very satisfying conclusion; Ch. 11, 'Lexical semantics and compositionality' by Barbara H. Partee, which explores the semantic properties of adjective-noun combinations in English; and Ch. 14, 'Some philosophy of language' by James Higginbotham, a play in two acts which analyzes the syntax and semantics of the English bare infinitive construction exemplified by Mary saw John leave. Two of the grammar chapters argue for the virtues of particular grammatical theories...