Noam Chomsky (1928 - present)

By Dahlfin43

  • Transformational Analysis

    Chomsky submits his doctoral dissertation to receive his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. It outlined his ideas of transformational grammar, which is a system of language analysis that uses processes and rules to express the relationship between the elements within a sentence and among the sentences within a language (McGilvray). Educational Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Cgpfw4z8cw

  • MIT Staff

    Chomsky is appointed to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology faculty in foreign languages and linguistics (Gale Encyclopedia of Psychology).

  • Syntactic Structures

    Chomsky, Noam. Syntactic Structures. London: Mouton, 1957. Chomsky’s first book was a revised version of his lectures given while he taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (McGilvray). This work argues that linguistics should be a part of cognitive psychology, as well as reinforces the major theoretical viewpoints from his earlier dissertation (Gale Encyclopedia of Psychology; MIT Department of Linguistics and Philosophy).

  • Language Aquisition Device

    First introduced in Syntactic Structures, this is Chomsky’s famous theory of the mental structure that enables developing children to innately construct grammar and phrases. This theory provides an explanation for why children acquire language skills more quickly than other faculties (Gale Encyclopedia of Psychology).

  • MIT Professor

    Chomsky is appointed as a full professor in the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics (MIT Department of Linguistics and Philosophy).

  • Aspects of the Theory fo Syntax

    Chomsky, Noam. Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. Cambridge: M.I.T. Press, 1965. Chomsky uses his “standard theory” to attempt to solve Plato’s Problem (what children acquire and how they acquire it). This theory and its later extended version explain how all humans since infancy have an innate structure of grammar which is developed through a child’s experiences (McGilvray).

  • The Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory

    Chomsky, Noam. The Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory. New York: Plenum Press, 1975. Also known as LSLT, this book is the first official publishing of Chomsky's 1955 dissertation (McGilvray; MIT Department of Linguistics and Philosophy).

  • MIT Institute Professor

    Chomsky is appointed Institute Professor (MIT Department of Linguistics and Philosophy).