Why Laws Work Pretty Well, but Not Great: Words and Rules in Legal Interpretation

Abstract

Words and Rules is Steven Pinker's third popular book about linguistics and cognitive psychology.' It is not about the law. In fact, it barely even mentions the law. Words and Rules is a book about how we form plurals of nouns and past tenses of verbs. According to Pinker, the words for irregular plurals and past tenses, like children and went, are learned from experience and stored in our minds as separate words. We remember them individually and relate them to their singular or present tense forms, child and go. In contrast, regular forms, like books and rained, are rule governed. Although we might remember them individually, we need not do so, because we routinely apply regular rules of pluralization (adding the sound s or z or iz depending on the final sound of the word being pluralized) and of past tense formation (adding the sound t