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Derivation and Explanation in the Minimalist Program edited by Samuel David Epstein, T. Daniel Seely (Generative Syntax, 6: Blackwell) To sum up, we believe that we all "must become philosophical and must enter upon a thorough criticism of the theory's own foundations" (Whitehead). This willingness to first carefully examine "the objects of our own creative fancy" (Pierce) and then to criticize them, and be "discontent with higher level stipulation" (Reuland), underlies the highly characteristic effort to increase explanatory depth by minimizing theoretical apparatus (Nash, as noted above, and, of course, Chomsky's Minimalist Program). Minimization-through­derivation, as discussed here, asks "Can we explain the laws by finding 'a way of thinking such that the laws are evident'?" (Feynman). Can we grow or gen­erate the macroscopic ("sentential/syntactic") regularities from the bottom up? (J. Epstein). These are the very kinds of questions, all regarding deduction and explanation, which we think it is never wrong to ask (and always counter­productive to denounce), that each paper in this volume seeks to explore, in one way or another, and, in some cases, with productive disagreement regarding the role of derivation in explanation. More

Semantics, 2nd edition by John I. Saeed (Introducing Linguistics, 2: Blackwell) This book provides an engaging introduction to semantics for students new to the field. It covers the basic concepts and methods of the field and discusses some of the most important contemporary lines of research. More

Handbook of Contemporary Syntactic Theory edited by Mark R. Baltin, Chris Collins (Blackwell Handbooks in Linguistics: Blackwell) provides a comprehensive view of the current issues in contemporary syntactic theory. Written by an international assembly of leading specialists in the field, the 23 original articles in this volume serve as a comprehensive and useful reference for various areas of grammar. The chapters include analyses of non-configurational languages, a crosslinguistic comparison of important grammatical features that interface with semantics, discussions from the perspective of learnability theory, a discussion of thematic relations, and comparisons of derivational and representational approaches to grammar. More

Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student, 4^th Edition by Edward P. J. Corbett, Robert J. Connors (Oxford University Press) This wonderful old workhorse of rhetoric remains a astounding blend of classical topology with a judicious touch of recent work. No one who has a interest in how to use the language effectively can afford to avoid this or some similar text. Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student however has my vote. I struggled with its second edition as an undergrad and knowledge of it made the many essays I wrote more engaging and perhaps contributed to my general success in written communication. More

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