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Early Life
Born to Elise and William Chomsky, he was considered a brilliant child. Noam spent much time between Philadelphia and New York during the Great Depression, learning through observation at his uncle's newspaper stand.
Received both his master's and doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania.
Married his wife, Carol, in 1949 and their relationship lasted until her death in 2008
https://www.biography.com/people/noam-chomsky-37616 -
Syntactic Structures
Published in 1957, Chomsky asked, and attempted to answer the following questions:
1) What is it that we know, when we know a language?
2) How is this knowledge acquired?
3) How is this knowledge put to use?
4) What is the physical basis, in neural mechanisms, for the systems of knowledge and use of language?
(https://chomsky.info/1987____/) -
Syntactic Structures cont.
"The standard theory of Syntactic Structures and especially of Aspects of the Theory of Syntax employed a phrase-structure grammar—a grammar in which the syntactic elements of a language are defined by means of rewrite rules that specify their smaller constituents...a large number of “obligatory” and “optional” transformations, and two levels of structure: a “deep structure,” where semantic interpretation takes place, and a “surface structure,” where phonetic interpretation takes place." -
Syntactic Structures cont.
Citation for quote. McGilvray, James A. “Noam Chomsky.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 13 July 2018, www.britannica.com/biography/Noam-Chomsky#ref283810. -
Principles and Parameter Theory
Written with Howard Lasnik, this theory was developed to fill in the holes allowed by Chomsky's Standard theory. By restricting grammar to help rule out linguistic options that should not be available.This was done to provide explanations rather than descriptions.
(http://linguistics.oxfordre.com/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199384655.001.0001/acrefore-9780199384655-e-356) citation too long for post -
Lecture by Chomsky
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Sw15-vSY8E Noam Chomsky speaking on Universal Language