The Linguistics WarsOxford University Press, 9 Μαρ 1995 - 368 σελίδες When it was first published in 1957, Noam Chomsky's Syntactic Structure seemed to be just a logical expansion of the reigning approach to linguistics. Soon, however, there was talk from Chomsky and his associates about plumbing mental structure; then there was a new phonology; and then there was a new set of goals for the field, cutting it off completely from its anthropological roots and hitching it to a new brand of psychology. Rapidly, all of Chomsky's ideas swept the field. While the entrenched linguists were not looking for a messiah, apparently many of their students were. There was a revolution, which colored the field of linguistics for the following decades. Chomsky's assault on Bloomfieldianism (also known as American Structuralism) and his development of Transformational-Generative Grammar was promptly endorsed by new linguistic recruits swelling the discipline in the sixties. Everyone was talking of a scientific revolution in linguistics, and major breakthroughs seemed imminent, but something unexpected happened--Chomsky and his followers had a vehement and public falling out. In The Linguistic Wars, Randy Allen Harris tells how Chomsky began reevaluating the field and rejecting the extensions his students and erstwhile followers were making. Those he rejected (the Generative Semanticists) reacted bitterly, while new students began to pursue Chomsky's updated vision of language. The result was several years of infighting against the backdrop of the notoriously prickly sixties. The outcome of the dispute, Harris shows, was not simply a matter of a good theory beating out a bad one. The debates followed the usual trajectory of most large-scale clashes, scientific or otherwise. Both positions changed dramatically in the course of the dispute--the triumphant Chomskyan position was very different from the initial one; the defeated generative semantics position was even more transformed. Interestingly, important features of generative semantics have since made their way into other linguistic approaches and continue to influence linguistics to this very day. And fairly high up on the list of borrowers is Noam Chomsky himself. The repercussions of the Linguistics Wars are still with us, not only in the bruised feelings and late-night war stories of the combatants, and in the contentious mood in many quarters, but in the way linguists currently look at language and the mind. Full of anecdotes and colorful portraits of key personalities, The Linguistics Wars is a riveting narrative of the course of an important intellectual controversy, and a revealing look into how scientists and scholars contend for theoretical glory. |
Περιεχόμενα
3 | |
10 | |
3 The Chomskyan Revolution | 35 |
4 The Beauty of Deep Structure | 74 |
The Model | 101 |
The Heresy | 135 |
7 The Vicissitudes of War | 160 |
The Ethos | 198 |
The Collapse | 214 |
10 Whence and Whither | 240 |
Notes | 261 |
Works Cited | 311 |
341 | |
Άλλες εκδόσεις - Προβολή όλων
Συχνά εμφανιζόμενοι όροι και φράσεις
abstract syntax analysis argued argument Aspects model attack behavior Bever Bloomfield Bloomfieldian called Cambridge Cartesian Linguistics Chicago Linguistic Society Chom Chomsky's Chomskyan Chomskyan linguistics cognitive grammar completely component concerns constraints deep structure derivation descriptive discussion early editor English fact Fodor formal George Lakoff global rules guage guistics Háj Halle's Harris Hockett hypothesis important instance interpretive semanticists interpretive semantics interpretivists issues Jackendoff Katz Katz-Postal principle kernel language Lees lexicalist linguistic theory logic look McCawley McCawley's meaning Modistae morphemes Newmeyer Noam Chomsky notion noun phrase paper phenomena philosophy phonology phrase structure rules position Postal proposals psychology relational grammar Remarks Review rhetorical Robin Lakoff Ross's Sadock Sapir says semantic interpretation rules semantic representation semanticists semantics sentences specific standard theory struc surface structure Syntactic Structures things tics tion Trager transformational grammar transformational-generative grammar ture underlying University Press verbs virtually words York
Δημοφιλή αποσπάσματα
Σελίδα 10 - To put it briefly, in human speech, different sounds have different meanings. To study this co-ordination of certain sounds with certain meanings is to study language.
Σελίδα 16 - The first thing that strikes us when we study the facts of language is that their succession in time does not exist insofar as the speaker is concerned.
Αναφορές για αυτό το βιβλίο
An Invitation to Cognitive Science: Language Daniel N. Osherson,Lila R. Gleitman Περιορισμένη προεπισκόπηση - 1995 |