A Simple Structure Unites All Human Languages
Steven Pinker's book ‘The Language Instinct’ talks about pretty much everything a layman would want to know about the basics of language, in layman's terms. It covers syntax, Chomskian grammars, prescriptive vs descriptive grammar, history and relations of languages, Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, biological and evolutionary basis for languages, language acquisition in children, differences between human languages and animals' attempts (spoiler: Pinker doesn't give any credit to claims that animals learn language). Big plus of the book is that it uses Chomsky's theories extensively but explains them without need for specialized knowledge (it's explicitly mentioned how Chomsky is unreadable without linguistic training). All in all, much recommended. The book even works well as an audiobook.<p>Also: in preparation to diving in Kafka's books I learned about a peculiar feature of his style:<p>> <i>Kafka often made extensive use of a characteristic particular to the German language which permits long sentences that sometimes can span an entire page. Kafka's sentences then deliver an unexpected impact just before the full stop—this being the finalizing meaning and focus. This is due to the construction of subordinate clauses in German which require that the verb be positioned at the end of the sentence.</i><p>>> <i>“Als Gregor Samsa eines Morgens aus unruhigen Träumen erwachte, fand er sich in seinem Bett zu einem ungeheuren Ungeziefer verwandelt.” (original)</i><p>> <i>“As Gregor Samsa one morning from restless dreams awoke, found he himself in his bed into an enormous vermin transformed.”</i><p>There's a neat picture illustrating the difference in the order of the parse tree: <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Kafka_bibliography#English_translations" rel="nofollow">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Kafka_bibliography#Eng...</a>