Editing Noam Chomsky (section)

==Linguistic theory==

{{Quote box
 | width = 25em
 | quote = What started as purely linguistic research&nbsp;... has led, through involvement in political causes and an identification with an older philosophic tradition, to no less than an attempt to formulate an overall theory of man. The roots of this are manifest in the linguistic theory&nbsp;... The discovery of cognitive structures common to the human race but only to humans (species specific), leads quite easily to thinking of unalienable human attributes.
 | source = —[[Edward Marcotte]] on the significance of Chomsky's linguistic theory{{sfn|Baughman et al.|2006}}
}}
The basis of Chomsky's linguistic theory lies in [[biolinguistics]], the linguistic school that holds that the principles underpinning the structure of language are biologically preset in the human mind and hence genetically inherited.{{sfnm|1a1=Lyons|1y=1978|1p=4|2a1=McGilvray|2y=2014|2pp=2–3}} He argues that all humans share the same underlying linguistic structure, irrespective of sociocultural differences.{{sfn|Lyons|1978|p=7}} In adopting this position Chomsky rejects the [[radical behaviorism|radical behaviorist]] psychology of [[B.&nbsp;F. Skinner]], who viewed speech, thought, and all behavior as a completely learned product of the interactions between organisms and their environments. Accordingly, Chomsky argues that language is a unique evolutionary development of the human species and distinguished from modes of communication used by any other animal species.{{sfnm|1a1=Lyons|1y=1978|1p=6|2a1=McGilvray|2y=2014|2pp=2–3}}{{sfn|Brain From Top To Bottom}} Chomsky argues that his [[Psychological nativism|nativist]], internalist view of language is consistent with the philosophical school of "[[rationalism]]" and contrasts with the anti-nativist, externalist view of language consistent with the philosophical school of "[[empiricism]]",{{sfn|McGilvray|2014|p=11}} which contends that all knowledge, including language, comes from external stimuli.{{sfn|Baughman et al.|2006}} Historians have disputed Chomsky's claim about rationalism on the basis that his theory of innate grammar excludes [[propositional knowledge]] and instead focuses on innate learning capacities or structures.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |title=Rationalism vs. Empiricism |encyclopedia=Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |publisher=Stanford University |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rationalism-empiricism |access-date=October 11, 2023 |last=Markie |first=Peter |date=2017 |editor-last=Zalta |editor-first=Edward N. |issn=1095-5054 |archive-date=November 22, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231122203336/https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rationalism-empiricism/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

===Universal grammar===
{{Main|Universal grammar}}
Since the 1960s, Chomsky has maintained that syntactic knowledge is partially inborn, implying that children need only learn certain language-specific features of their [[native language]]s. He bases his argument on observations about human [[language acquisition]] and describes a "[[poverty of the stimulus]]": an enormous gap between the linguistic stimuli to which children are exposed and the rich [[linguistic competence]] they attain. For example, although children are exposed to only a very small and finite subset of the allowable [[Sentence (linguistics)|syntactic variants]] within their first language, they somehow acquire the highly organized and systematic ability to understand and produce [[Digital infinity|an infinite number of sentences]], including ones that have never before been uttered, in that language.{{sfn|Dovey|2015}} To explain this, Chomsky proposed that the primary linguistic data must be supplemented by an [[innate linguistic capacity]]. Furthermore, while a human baby and a kitten are both capable of [[inductive reasoning]], if they are exposed to exactly the same linguistic data, the human will always acquire the ability to understand and produce language, while the kitten will never acquire either ability. Chomsky referred to this difference in capacity as the [[language acquisition device]], and suggested that linguists needed to determine both what that device is and what constraints it imposes on the range of possible human languages. The universal features that result from these constraints would constitute "universal grammar".{{sfn|Chomsky}}{{sfn|Thornbury|2006|p=234}}{{sfn|O'Grady|2015}} Multiple researchers have challenged universal grammar on the grounds of the evolutionary infeasibility of its genetic basis for language,{{sfnm| 1a1=Christiansen|1a2=Chater|1y=2010|1p=489| 2a1=Ruiter|2a2=Levinson|2y=2010|2p=518}} the lack of crosslinguistic surface universals,{{sfnm| 1a1=Evans|1a2=Levinson|1y=2009|1p=429| Tomasello|2009|2p=470}} and the unproven link between innate/universal structures and the structures of specific languages.{{sfn|Tomasello|2003|p=284}} [[Michael Tomasello]] has challenged Chomsky's theory of innate syntactic knowledge as based on theory and not behavioral observation.{{sfn|Tomasello|1995|p=131}} The empirical basis of poverty of the stimulus arguments has been challenged by [[Geoffrey Pullum]] and others, leading to back-and-forth debate in the [[language acquisition]] literature.<ref name="PullumScholz">{{cite journal|last1=Pullum|first1=Geoff|author-link1=Geoff Pullum|last2=Scholz|first2=Barbara|author-link2=Barbara Scholz|date=2002|title=Empirical assessment of stimulus poverty arguments|journal=The Linguistic Review|volume=18|issue=1–2|pages=9–50|doi=10.1515/tlir.19.1-2.9}}</ref><ref name="LegateYang">{{cite journal|last1=Legate|first1=Julie Anne|author-link1=Julie Anne Legate|last2=Yang|first2=Charles|author-link2=Charles Yang (linguist)|date=2002|title=Empirical re-assessment of stimulus poverty arguments|journal=The Linguistic Review|volume=18|issue=1–2|pages=151–162|doi=10.1515/tlir.19.1-2.9|url=https://www.ling.upenn.edu/~ycharles/papers/tlr-final.pdf}}</ref> Recent work has also suggested that some [[recurrent neural network]] architectures can learn hierarchical structure without an explicit constraint.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=McCoy|first1=R. Thomas|last2=Frank|first2=Robert|last3=Linzen|first3=Tal|year=2018 |title=Revisiting the poverty of the stimulus: hierarchical generalization without a hierarchical bias in recurrent neural networks|journal=Proceedings of the 40th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society|pages=2093–2098|arxiv=1802.09091 |url=https://tallinzen.net/media/papers/mccoy_frank_linzen_2018_cogsci.pdf}}</ref>

===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>