The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language

by Steven Pinker

The horse raced past the barn fell. The man who hunts ducks out on weekends. The cotton clothing is usually made of grows in Mississippi. The prime number few. Fat people eat accumulates. The tycoon sold the offshore oil tracts for a lot of money wanted to kill JR. Most people proceed contendedly through the sentence up to a certain point, then hit a wall and frantically look back to earlier words to try to figure out where they went wrong. Often the attempt fails and people assume that the sentences have an extra word tacked onto the end or consist of two pieces of sentence stitched together. In fact, each one is a grammatical sentence: The horse that was walked past the fence proceeded steadily, but the horse raced past the barn fell. The man who fishes goes into work seven days a week, but the man who hunts ducks out on weekends. The cotton that sheets are usually made of grows in Egypt, but the cotton clothing is usually made of grows in Mississippi. The mediocre are numerous, but the prime number few. Carbohydrates that people eat are quickly broken down, but fat people eat accumulates. JR Ewing had swindled one tycoon too many into buying useless properties. The tycoon sold the offshore oil tracts for a lot of money wanted to kill JR.