Language Learnability and Language Development

Harvard University Press, 1984. First Edition. Trade Paperback. 435 pages. Pinker's first book; lays out his theory of computational language acquisition. The seventh book in Harvard's Cognitive Science Series. Published simultaneously in hardcover. First edition (first printing). A near fine, gently read copy in wrappers (paperback). From the Harvard office library of the paleontologist and leading advocate for evolution, Stephen Jay Gould. Pinker and Gould publicly disagreed about theories of language development. With a posthumous tipped in bookplate indicating the provenance. *** Intellectually, Gould understood the true nature of these bookplates, but the book collector in him appreciated them. In his essay 'A Seahorse for All Races' Gould writes about one of his prized possessions, a book from Charles Dickens' library: 'Dickens made no annotations, but a bookplate on the cover, presumably inserted as a come-on for a sale after Dickens' death in 1870, does prove that [he] kept and shelved the book.' *** We offer our Gould bookplates, printed letterpress in two colors, in the same spirit.

In this influential study, Steven Pinker develops a new approach to the problem of language learning. Now reprinted with new commentary by the author, this classic work continues to be an indispensable resource in developmental psycholinguistics.