Listening Practice: Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker uses the example of the French Academy’s failure to legislate proper language use to argue that language primarily:

What is the subtle difference in meaning that Pinker identifies between the prepositional dative (“give the muffin to the mouse”) and the double-object dative (“give the mouse the muffin”)?

Pinker suggests that the ‘language of thought’ (Mentalese) that unconsciously governs verb use is based on a fixed set of concepts reminiscent of those argued by Immanuel Kant, such as:

According to Pinker, the container metaphor of communication is invoked when we use dative verbs metaphorically (e.g., ‘tell me a story’). This metaphor treats the abstract idea as what?

Why are indirect speech acts (like a veiled bribe or a polite request) so common, even though both parties know the true meaning?