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Article: SOMETIMES, ENGLISH WON'T COMPUTE.(LIFE & LEISURE)
- Article from:
- Albany Times Union (Albany, NY)
- Article date:
- May 30, 1995
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1995 Albany Times Union. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Byline: JAMES COATES
Yoko Ono will talk about her husband, John Lennon, who was killed in an interview with Barbara Walters.''
``Two cars were reported stolen by the Groveton police yesterday.''
Those two examples of fractured syntax are among hundreds cited by Massachusetts Institute of Technology psycholinguist Steven Pinker in this utterly absorbing inquiry into the nature of language and therefore into the nature of the human spirit itself.
Virtually every human reading those sentences will recognize immediately that Lennon didn't die in an interview with Walters and that the Groveton police didn't steal the cars.
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