Noam Chomsky

( Biography )

(1928- ), American linguist, educator, and political activist, educated at the University of Pennsylvania. He is regarded as the founder of transformational-generative grammar, a system that revolutionized linguistics. Chomsky believes that language is the result of an innate human faculty. His analyses of language start with basic sentences, from which are developed an endless variety of syntactic combinations by means of a set of rules that he formulates. At the end of a chain of syntactic rules are phonological rules governing pronunciation.

Chomsky joined the faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1955 and became known not only as a teacher and writer but as an articulate opponent of American involvement in the Vietnam War. His major linguistic publications are Syntactic Structures (1957), Aspects of the Theory of Syntax (1965), The Sound Pattern of English (1968; with Morris Halle, 1923- ), Language and Mind (1972), The Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory and Reflections on Language (both 1975). Language and Responsibility (1979) links language and politics; Chomsky's political writings include American Power and the New Mandarins (1969) and The Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel and the Palestinians (1983).

CopyRight (c) Ceacro 2002 All Rights Reserved