RHYME AND REASON: AN INTRODUCTION TO MINIMALIST SYNTAX.Juan Uriagareka. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1998. Pp. xlii + 669. $75.00 cloth,$45.00 paper.

Abstract

Despite the energetically enthusiastic assertions of the publisher and of Piatelli-Palmirini, who offers an extensive foreword beginning “This dialogue is a gem,” I found that this enormous book did not live up to its hype. I was hoping to find an engaging discussion—in a format I liked from the earlier Lasnik and Uriagareka A course in GB syntax (1988)—that would bring me up to date on the Minimalist Program, from a position somewhere mid-GB. However, I rarely felt the dialogue was intended to welcome the uninitiated. First, its style is irritating, with attempts to be cute that just end up being distracting. Second, many parts of the discussion seem much more aimed at colleagues and rivals on the inside than those members of the larger community for whom the book is designed (as suggested, at least, by the blurb). This is particularly a shame, given that Piatelli-Palmirini's preface explicitly says, patronizingly, that the book will be good for those applied linguists who get irritated with constant change in linguistic theory (p. xxxiv).