Margaret Thomas Formalism and Functionalism in Linguistics: The Engineer and the Collector. New York: Routledge, 2020. Pp. viii + 118.

Abstract

early language changes in Alzheimer’s disease and offer an important methodological point to bear in mind for clinical research: the former can inform the latter in valuable ways. The methodologies used in first language acquisition studies are entirely applicable for studies of subjects with mild cognitive impairment, to which their experiments investigating free relatives, ellipsis in coordinate sentences, etc., richly attest. The cross-discipline applications that open the horizons of new insight are inspiring, and S&F’s ingenuity in driving them is admirable. Despite the critiques above, the volume achieves what it sets out to achieve: under a common theme of language development, studies from different areas of linguistics are combined and made mutually relevant. Semantics, syntax, processing, L1/L2/heritage/bilingual acquisition, methodology, clinical linguistics all come together in an overall successful attempt at a cross-linguistic volume in the spirit of Barbara Lust! I stand staunchly with Martohardjono and Flynn in advocating for cross-field cooperation, and I see enormous benefits in future work, the objective of which is to point out different, bracing, unconventional, not immediately observable perspectives on — for some old, and for some new — phenomena. In fact, I think this is the only way forward.