High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Words and Rules: The Ingredients of Language (ISBN 0-06-095840-5) is a 1999 popular linguistics book by Steven Pinker on the subject of regular and irregular verbs. In Pinker`s words, the book "tries to illuminate the nature of language and mind by choosing a single phenomenon and examining it from every angle imaginable." His analysis reflects his view that language and many other aspects of human nature are innate evolutionary-psychological adaptations. Most of the book examines studies of the form and frequency of grammatical errors in English (and to a lesser extent in German) as well as the speech of brain-damaged persons with selective aphasia.