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Noam Chomsky December 07,1928 - Present

By ecbolger

  • Early Years

    Noam Chomsky was born on December 7, 1928. (Chapman and Routledge) He attended college at the University of Pennsylvania where he was awarded his Ph.D. in 1955 and started work in the Research Laboratory for Electronic at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). (Chapman and Routledge)

  • Chomsky Hierarchy

    Chomsky Hierarchy
    With his release of the paper “Three Models for the Description of Language” in 1956, Chomsky explains that there is a hierarchy of classes for formal grammars. (Chomsky Hierarchy) This set classes of grammar with increasingly expressive power and set logical structures across different languages and set a basis for understanding relationships between grammars. Chomsky’s hierarchy has become relevant in theoretical computer science.

  • Transformational Generative Grammar

    "Syntactic Structures" introduced transformational generative grammar. Shifted the focus of language from discovery, language starts at the lowest level and working up, to an evaluation of language. This looked to determine which grammar is the correct one. Human language is ultimately a biological object. The theory of the internal structure of languages would be more familiar to researchers in the natural sciences

  • Universal Grammar

    Universal grammar explains that human beings have a language acquisition device (LAD) that gives the relevant capacity to learn. A child needs to only learn minimal features of their native language. There is a large gap between what children are exposed to and what they develop. Chomsky suggested that linguists should determine what constraints LAD imposes on language. Knowing this would lead us to determine a universal grammar. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Cgpfw4z8cw

  • Minimalist Program

    Chomsky developed the minimalist program to relate meaning and sound, using the minimum possible faculties. This puts an emphasis on the plasticity of the human brain to associate sound and meaning while making the rules of grammar side effects of the way language works. This program focuses on the mechanisms the brain uses to generate rules to regulate speech.