Knowledge of Language (Masterplots II: Nonfiction Series)
At a glance:
- Author: Noam Chomsky
- First Published: 1985
- Type of Work: Linguistics
- Genres: Nonfiction, Linguistics
- Subjects: Language or languages, Psychology or psychologists, Communication, Reading, Grammar
Form and Content
In 1957, Noam Chomsky’s first book, Syntactic Structures, created something close to a revolution in the study of linguistics. The field had been dominated by scholars who analyzed examples to determine how sounds (phonetics) and words (syntax) were put together to create sentences that were considered grammatical by the speakers and writers of a language. In his book, Chomsky called attention to the fact that analysis of structurally similar sentences such as “John is eager to please” and “John is easy to please” does not explain the...
[The entire page is 2611 words long]
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