Editing Noam Chomsky (section)

===Generative grammar===
{{Main|Generative grammar|Transformational grammar|Chomsky hierarchy|Minimalist program}}
Chomsky is generally credited with launching the research tradition of [[generative grammar]], which aims to explain the [[cognition|cognitive]] basis of language by formulating and testing explicit models of humans' subconscious grammatical knowledge. Generative grammar proposes models of language consisting of explicit rule systems, which make testable [[falsifiability|falsifiable]] predictions. The goal of generative grammar is sometimes described as answering the question "What is that that you know when you know a language?"<ref name ="WasowHandbookUmbrella">{{cite encyclopedia |title=Generative Grammar |encyclopedia=The Handbook of Linguistics|year=2003|last=Wasow|first=Thomas|author-link=Tom Wasow|editor-last1=Aronoff|editor-first1=Mark|editor-last2=Ress-Miller|editor-first2=Janie|publisher= Blackwell|url=https://www.blackwellpublishing.com/content/BPL_Images/Content_store/WWW_Content/9780631204978/12.pdf|doi=10.1002/9780470756409.ch12|pages=296,311|isbn=978-0-631-20497-8 |quote="...generative grammar is not so much a theory as a family or theories, or a school of thought... [having] shared assumptions and goals, widely used formal devices, and generally accepted empirical results"}}</ref><ref name=carnie_p5>{{Cite book |last=Carnie|first=Andrew|title=Syntax: A Generative Introduction|author-link=Andrew Carnie|publisher=Wiley-Blackwell|year=2002|isbn=978-0-631-22543-0|page=5}}</ref>

Within generative grammar, Chomsky's initial model was called [[transformational grammar]]. Chomsky developed transformational grammar in the mid-1950s, whereupon it became the dominant syntactic theory in linguistics for two decades.{{sfn|Harlow|2010|p=752}} "Transformations" are syntactic rules that derive [[deep structures and surface structures|''surface structure'']] from ''deep structure'', which was often considered to reflect the structure of meaning.{{sfn|Baughman et al.|2006}} Transformational grammar later developed into the 1980s [[government and binding theory]] and thence into the [[minimalist program]].<!--{{sfn|Hornstein|2003}}-->{{Sfn|Harlow|2010|p=752}} This research focused on the [[principles and parameters]] framework, which explained children's ability to learn any language by filling open parameters (a set of universal grammar principles) that adapt as the child encounters linguistic data.{{sfn|Hornstein|2003}} The minimalist program, initiated by Chomsky,{{sfn|Szabó|2010}}<!-- see this source if more overview on Chomsky's linguistic background if needed --> asks which minimal principles and parameters theory fits most elegantly, naturally, and simply.{{sfn|Hornstein|2003}}

[[File:Chomsky-hierarchy.svg|thumb|alt=A set of 4 ovals inside one another, each resting at the bottom of the one larger than itself. There is a term in each oval; from smallest to largest: regular, context-free, context-sensitive, recursively enumerable.|Set inclusions described by the [[Chomsky hierarchy]]]]
Chomsky is commonly credited with inventing transformational-generative grammar, but his original contribution was considered modest when he first published his theory. In his 1955 dissertation and his 1957 textbook ''[[Syntactic Structures]]'', he presented recent developments in the analysis formulated by [[Zellig Harris]], who was Chomsky's PhD supervisor, and by [[Charles F. Hockett]].{{efn|name=input|
* {{harvnb|Smith|2004|pp=107}} "Chomsky's early work was renowned for its mathematical rigor and he made some contribution to the nascent discipline of mathematical linguistics, in particular the analysis of (formal) languages in terms of what is now known as the ''Chomsky hierarchy.''"
* {{harvnb|Koerner|1983|pp=159}}: "Characteristically, Harris proposes a transfer of sentences from English to Modern Hebrew{{nbsp}}... Chomsky's approach to syntax in ''Syntactic Structures'' and several years thereafter was not much different from Harris's approach, since the concept of 'deep' or 'underlying structure' had not yet been introduced. The main difference between Harris (1954) and Chomsky (1957) appears to be that the latter is dealing with transfers within one single language only"}} Their method derives from the work of the structural linguist [[Louis Hjelmslev]], who introduced [[Formal grammar|algorithmic grammar]] to general linguistics.{{efn|name=origin|
* {{harvnb|Koerner|1978|pp=41f}}: "it is worth noting that Chomsky cites Hjelmslev's ''Prolegomena'', which had been translated into English in 1953, since the authors' theoretical argument, derived largely from logic and mathematics, exhibits noticeable similarities."
* {{harvnb|Seuren|1998|pp=166}}: "Both Hjelmslev and Harris were inspired by the mathematical notion of an algorithm as a purely formal production system for a set of strings of symbols.{{nbsp}}... it is probably accurate to say that Hjelmslev was the first to try and apply it to the generation of strings of symbols in natural language"
* {{harvnb|Hjelmslev|1969}} ''Prolegomena to a Theory of Language''. Danish original 1943; first English translation 1954.}} Based on this rule-based notation of grammars, <!--needed?{{sfn|Morris|2013|p=189}} --> Chomsky grouped logically possible phrase-structure grammar types into a series of four nested subsets and increasingly complex types, together known as the [[Chomsky hierarchy]]. This classification remains relevant to [[formal language theory]]{{sfn|Butterfield|Ngondi|Kerr|2016}}<!--is the following needed? It imposes a logical structure across different language classes and provides a basis for understanding the relationship between grammars.--> and [[theoretical computer science]], especially [[programming language theory]],{{sfn|Knuth|2002}} [[compiler]] construction, and [[automata theory]].{{sfn|Davis|Weyuker|Sigal|1994|p=327}} Chomsky's ''Syntactic Structures'' became, beyond generative linguistics as such, a catalyst for connecting what in [[Louis Hjelmslev|Hjelmslev]]'s and [[Otto Jespersen|Jespersen]]'s time was the beginnings of [[structural linguistics]], which has become [[cognitive linguistics]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Bierwisch |first=Manfred |date=2019 |title=Strukturelle Grammatik, semantische Universalien und Arbitrarität – Ein Gespräch mit Manfred Bierwisch |url=http://www.gespraech-manfred-bierwisch.de/ |access-date=September 3, 2024 |website=www.gespraech-manfred-bierwisch.de |at=Section 3, starting at 31 min.}}</ref>