Book contents
- The Cambridge History of Linguistics
- The Cambridge History of Linguistics
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations, Acronyms, Special Symbols, and Other Conventions
- Introduction
- Part I Ancient, Classical, and Medieval Periods
- Part II Renaissance to Late Nineteenth Century
- Part III Late Nineteenth-through Twentieth-Century Linguistics
- Part IIIA Late Nineteenth Century through the 1950s: Synchrony, Autonomy, and Structuralism
- Part IIIB 1960–2000: Formalism, Cognitivism, Language Use and Function, Interdisciplinarity
- 17 Chomsky and the Turn to Syntax, Including Alternative Approaches to Syntax
- 18 Functionalist Dimensions of Grammatical and Discourse Analysis
- 19 Semantics and Pragmatics
- 20 Language and Philosophy, from Frege to the Present
- 21 Lexicology and Lexicography
- 22 Generative Phonology: its Origins, its Principles, and its Successors
- 23 Phonetics and Experimental Phonology, c. 1950–2000
- 24 Historical and Universal-Typological Linguistics
- 25 Language and Society
- 26 Language and Anthropology
- 27 Language and Psychology, 1950–Present: A Brief Overview
- 28 Semiotics
- 29 Applied Linguistics
- References
- Index
17 - Chomsky and the Turn to Syntax, Including Alternative Approaches to Syntax
from Part IIIB - 1960–2000: Formalism, Cognitivism, Language Use and Function, Interdisciplinarity
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 July 2023
- The Cambridge History of Linguistics
- The Cambridge History of Linguistics
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations, Acronyms, Special Symbols, and Other Conventions
- Introduction
- Part I Ancient, Classical, and Medieval Periods
- Part II Renaissance to Late Nineteenth Century
- Part III Late Nineteenth-through Twentieth-Century Linguistics
- Part IIIA Late Nineteenth Century through the 1950s: Synchrony, Autonomy, and Structuralism
- Part IIIB 1960–2000: Formalism, Cognitivism, Language Use and Function, Interdisciplinarity
- 17 Chomsky and the Turn to Syntax, Including Alternative Approaches to Syntax
- 18 Functionalist Dimensions of Grammatical and Discourse Analysis
- 19 Semantics and Pragmatics
- 20 Language and Philosophy, from Frege to the Present
- 21 Lexicology and Lexicography
- 22 Generative Phonology: its Origins, its Principles, and its Successors
- 23 Phonetics and Experimental Phonology, c. 1950–2000
- 24 Historical and Universal-Typological Linguistics
- 25 Language and Society
- 26 Language and Anthropology
- 27 Language and Psychology, 1950–Present: A Brief Overview
- 28 Semiotics
- 29 Applied Linguistics
- References
- Index
Summary
This chapter discusses the rise of Noam Chomsky’s formal, syntax centered, transformational grammar (T) and then ‘generative grammar’ (GG), chronicling its start in Syntactic Structures (1957), influenced by Zellig Harris, the Prague school, mathematics, set theory, Carnap and Goodman. In Aspects of the Theory of Syntax (1965, the ‘Standard Theory’), Chomsky defined competence (vs. performance), the creativity and infinitude of language, grammar as a theory of a language, sentence meaning (the Katz-Postal hypothesis), deep vs. surface structure, the formal ‘simplicity’ of the grammar, and Universal Grammar (UG).
After 1965, alternative models, such as Generative Semantics and later Case Grammar arose, as well as Construction Grammar and Cognitive Linguistics, while Chomsky developed Extended Standard Theory (EST), leading to Government-Binding (GB), Principles-and-Parameters (P&P), modularity, and in the 1990s the Minimalist Program (MP), with ‘minimalist’ syntax but ‘maximal’ UG.
Alternative approaches were varied, including Relational Grammar (RG), and also ‘superlexicalism,' with narrowly conceived T’s, constraint-based architecture, model-theoretic semantics, e.g., CF-PSG (Context-free Phrase Structure Grammar), Head-Driven PSG, and LFG (Lexical Functional Grammar), with no Ts -- and many others.
While few followed the MP in 2000 and after, Chomsky’s influence was incontestable worldwide, especially for those who take a formal approach to grammar.
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- The Cambridge History of Linguistics , pp. 549 - 576Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023