In his penetrating study of language, MIT linguist Noam Chomsky has given us a framework that is to culture what the genetic code is to life. “Noam Chomsky’s position in the history of ideas is comparable to that of Darwin or Descartes,” University College London linguist Neil Smith declared in Nature. “Chomsky has redefined our understanding of ourselves as humans.”
Chomsky’s works, most notably
(1957) and
Aspects of the Theory of Syntax
(1965), presented a revolutionary approach to understanding language structure, known as generative grammar, positing that every child has the innate capacity to master language. Chomsky’s finding that language is genetically determined and part of the evolutionary process ultimately overturned the once popular notion that language comes to children through imitation and conditioning.
In addition to being a linguistic scholar, Chomsky has earned a worldwide reputation as an impassioned and informed political writer. His observations, which grew ...
