Synthesized answer
The author, Steven Pinker, aims to satisfy curiosity about language by showing its elegance and richness in everyday speech [Passage 1].
For readers of popular science, Pinker intends to explain discoveries and nondiscoveries related to language. This includes topics such as universal deep structures, brainy babies, grammar genes, artificial intelligence, neural networks, signing chimps, talking Neanderthals, idiot savants, feral children, paradoxical brain damage, identical twins separated at birth, brain imaging, and the search for the origin of languages [Passage 1]. He also plans to address common questions about languages, such as why so many exist, why they are difficult for adults to learn, and why there's uncertainty about plurals like "Walkman" [Passage 2].
The provided passages outline the *topics* the author intends to cover and the *types of questions* he plans to answer, but they do not detail the specific evidence that will be presented within the book for each of these points.
Synthesized from the book passages below. Chat with the book on Feynman for follow-up.
From the book
Title: The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker, Garikoitz Knörr de Santiago Description: From the Preface... I have never met a person who is not interested in language. I wrote this book to try to satisfy that curiosity. Language is beginning to submit to that uniquely satisfying kind of understanding that we call science, but the news has been kept a secret. For the language lover, I hope to show that there is a world of elegance and richness in quotidian speech that far outshines the local curiosities of etymologies, unusual words, and fine points of usage. For the reader of…
atural questions about languages, like why there are so many of them, why they are so hard for adults to learn, and why no one seems to know the plural of Walkman.