Artificial Intelligence 170 (2006) 1234–1236 www.elsevier.com/locate/artint Book reviews Jerome A. Feldman, From Molecule to Metaphor: A Neural Theory of Language, Bradford Books, MIT Press, ISBN 0262062534, 2006, 360 pages. Paul Smolensky, Géraldine Legendre, The Harmonic Mind: From Neural Computation to Optimality-Theoretic Grammar, Bradford Books, MIT Press, ISBN 0262195283, 2006, 2 volumes: Vol. I: Cognitive Architecture (xxiv + 563 pages); Vol. II: Linguistic and Philosophical Implications (xxiv + 611 pages). Charles Yang, The Infinite Gift: How Children Learn and Unlearn the Languages of the World, Scribner, ISBN 0743237560, 2006, 288 pages. Three books on language: pro-Noam, anti-Noam, net-Noam William J. Idsardi Department of Linguistics, Program in Neuroscience and Cognitive Science, University of Maryland, 1401 Marie Mount Hall, College Park, MD 20742, USA Available online 9 November 2006 Three books on language, three general intended audiences, three very different points of view (but all heavily influenced by Chomsky), and (mostly) pitched at three different levels of description and explanation, in the sense of [10]. Yang’s book is aimed at the general intelligentsia, say the readers of the New York Times Book Review, and stays mostly at the computational (problem specification) level, giving us a tour through the state of current thinking within Chomsky’s [1] Minimalist program on how languages are acquired. Yang’s high-level goal is to reconcile statistical learning with the Principles and Parameters approach to Universal Grammar (and its descendents; the technical treat- ment of this material is in [16]). No actual algorithms or neurons are encountered in the book, though like the other two books, the long-term goal is a vertically integrated theory of language and cognition. Feldman’s book certainly has the most ambitious title, and it’s intended for those New York Times Book Review readers with PhD’s, who probably also scan Nature, Science and PNAS at least occasionally—the secondary literature crowd. It’s also a reaction to Chomsky (he’s the first author quoted, on the first page of the Preface), and the intent (as the title says) is to take us from the quantum physics of molecular bonds on up to linguistic meaning, and beyond. Contra Chomsky, Feldman wants to study language not as a system in itself, but embodied in its use. This leads to the book’s two credos (page 3, italics in the original): “Thought is structured neural activity”. “Language is inextricable from thought and experience”. We start out at the implementational level, with a brief but nice summary of neurons, fly quickly through the algorithmic level (Feldman “lean[s] toward the low end, with each concept being represented as the activity of a focal E-mail address: idsardi@umd.edu. URL: http://www.ling.umd.edu/~idsardi/. doi:10.1016/j.artint.2006.10.007