The mastery of the English past tense isn't a glamorous topic, not these days. That, however, is what Words and Rules is about and, as if to sweep any doubts away, Steven Pinker assures us of the subject's importance: the study of the past tense is 'the only case I know in which two great systems of Western thought may be tested and compared . . . like ordinary scientific hypotheses'. As for his own theory of the tense, it is 'an opening statement in the latest round of a debate on how the mind works that has raged for centuries' - this book never runs low on hubris or hyperbole.

LRB 24 August 2000 | PDF Download