Current Understanding of Rhodococcus Equi infection and its Zoonotic Implications

Abstract

Three books presenting biological approaches to language are reviewed: (1) Noam Chomsky's On Nature and Language (Cambridge: Cambridge U Press, 2002); (2) Stephen R. Anderson & David W. Lightfoot's Linguistics as Cognitive Physiology (Cambridge: Cambridge U Press, 2002); & (3) Bernard H. Bichakjian's Language in a Darwinian Perspective (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2002). The contents of each chapter in each of the three works are summarized, & evaluative commentary compares the differing arguments of the three books on three principal themes: the design of the language faculty, the functionality of grammars, & the role of empiricism in strategies used to deflect objections to each author's theories. In addition, Bichakjian's central notion of unidirectional language change, particularly a shift from object + verb to verb + object typology, is counterexemplified & refuted; & Chomsky's proposed linkage between syntactic movement & a need to eliminate uninterpretable features is called into question by citing focus movement data from Italian & English. It is concluded that increasing claims of success for the minimalist program are inversely proportional to its empirical results & that Bichakjian's idiosyncratic views have no empirical motivation; Anderson & Lightfoot's work is commended, however, for its balance of theoretical claims & empirical support for them. 73 References. J. Hitchcock