Chomsky's Universal Grammar: An Introduction

Although I am not a Chomskyan, I personally am fond of this book. It is well-written and lucid, presenting basic Government & Binding theory in terms that are very easy to understand. I doubt a single non-technical introduction to generative grammar of this brevity and clarity has yet been written (far superior to Pinker's hand-waving in _The Language Instinct_), and I recommend it to anyone, non-generative linguist and non-linguist alike, who is interested in current mainstream linguistics in North America.However, Cook does seem worshipful of Chomsky to a degree that is just short of disturbing; Chomsky is frequently quoted more as authority than for argument, and does indeed appear on almost every page. The overall affect was, for me, disquieting.It is also, of course, no longer accurate: "Chomsky's" Universal Grammar is now the Minimalist Program, which is handled only by a final, tacked-on chapter. Cook should completely update this book with a third edition that starts with Chomsky's current theory from the beginning.