A look at Avram Noam Chomsky's services to syntax.

1. SERVICES OF CHOMSKY TO
SYNTAX
Presentation by: Nabeela Taimur Ali

2. Avram Noam Chomsky (7-12-1928)
American Linguist,
Philosopher, Cognitive
scientist and logician.
Noam Chomsky is a
prolific writer and
scholar of linguistics
etc., written over 700
articles and more than
50 books during the
past 40 years.
In field of linguistics,
he is known as father
of modern
linguistics, and
founder of TGG.
Chomskyian
revolution, name given
to his theories;
universal grammar n
role of brain in
language use is center
of his theories
Was voted "world's top
public intellectual" in a
2005 poll.
Many have said that his
early works are "the
single most important
books in cognitive
science."
Age 16; university of
pennsylvania, Arabic.
Morphophonemics of
Modern Hebrew; B-A.
revised it for M-A.
1975 book was
published, The Logical
Structure of Linguistic
Theory.
1955 he was awarded
his PHD from the
university of
Pennsylvania for a
thesis setting out his
ideas on TG.
Syntactic Structures:
his first book
published, caused
upheaval. Later John
Lyon asserted that it
"revolutionized the
scientific study of
language”.
Aspects of theory of
linguistics. Topics in
the theory of
Generative Grammar.
Language and mind.
1959 he attracted
further attention for
his review of B.F.
Skinner’s book Verbal
Behavior in which he
argued that Skinner
ignored the role of
human creativity in
linguistics.

3. Chomsky’s Linguistic Beliefs in a nutshell:
 In the 1940s and 1950s, before Chomsky emerged on
the scene, linguistic study focused mainly on
performance (how people spoke – the language that
came out of their mouths). Generally, what we might
classify as a superficial view of language was held by
many in the field. Language was thought to go in and
to come out, and not much was believed to happen in
between. In other words, linguists of the 1940s and
1950s thought that language existed in itself and that
the brain was not involved in the use of language
and its process.

5. Syntactic Structures
(1957)
Competence; radically
different view from
establish belief.
“Unconscious knowledge
people have about
language”.
Chomsky criticized the
establishment for
describing performance,
and instead set out to
explain competence.
Precisely; he wanted to
study how the brain
processed and dealt with
language. This was not
part of linguistics.
"Our natural order of
thoughts is mirrored by
our words."
Language might be
"unconscious" and “innate”
This idea was in direct
contrast with the popular
linguistic beliefs of 1950s.
This triggered; criticism
and commentary on new
ideas.

6. Aspects of the Theory
of Syntax (1965)
Clarify and refine his
abstract ideas.
Created mathematical
formula that attempts to
examine how language is
situated in the brain.
Deep structure/ base rules.
These base rules generate
strings of "phrase markers,"
which are the elementary
units of deep structure.
Surface structure/ phonetic
interpretation of deep
structure. Though not always
correlate one-to-one in his
formula.
In Chomsky’s theory, both
operate as distinct, yet
related, entities. Syntax ties
them together; made
Chomsky focus on Syntax.
First half; debunking
traditional ideas. Second
half; mathematical
structures of language.
Divided into two parts,
surface structure and deep
structure,
He later recanted some of his
ideas about deep structure
and language, his theories
still provide basis for
linguistics study.

7. Chomsky’s
Syntax!

8. Minimalism
Principles and
Parameters Approach
Standard Theory/
Extended Standard
theory
Transformationa
l Generative
Grammar
Transformatio
nal Grammar.
Generative
Grammar

9. Deep
structure;
invisible,
inaudible
interface to the
mental lexicon.
TG/TGG
DS is converted
by
transformation
al rules into
surface
structure.
• Rationale:
certain
constructions
at surface
structure n
deep
structure.
TGG syntactic
theory is the
theory of
competence.
3.TGG is a set of
grammatical rules
that provide
clarity to the
sentence. 4.The
language is a
mirror of mind.
Few principle
and concepts.
1.Speaker-listener
competence. 2.
Language is
creative and
innovative.

10. Standard
theory.
Theory
corresponds
to the
original
model of
generative
grammar.
It’s core
aspect is a
distinction
between two
different
representatio
ns of a
sentence.
Semantic
component
was added.
Need/result…
active/passiv
e pairs had
almost-but-not-
quite
identical
deep
structures.
At first in
TGG,
active/passiv
e pairs had
identical
deep
structures.
Extended
Standard
Theory
(1965–1973)
Had two
important
features.
Syntactic
constraints
.
Generalized
phrase
structures (X-bar
theory)

11. Government and Binding theory’s view is that Universal Grammar can be
broken down into two main components: levels of representation and a
system of constraints.
Lexicon
D-structure
Move-a
S-structure
Move-a
Stylistic and
Phonological
rules
PF LF
Standard
Theory
GB Theory
a. deep structure D- structure
b. surface
structure
S- structure
c. phonological
rules
Phonetic form or
PF rules
d. semantic
component
Logical form or
LF rules

12. P and P is a framework within
generative linguistics in which the
syntax of a natural language is
described in accordance with
general principles and specific
parameters that for particular
languages are either turned on or off.
Central idea of P & P is that a
person's syntactic knowledge can be
modeled with two formal
mechanisms:
1.A finite set of fundamental
principles . 2. A finite set of
parameters that determine
syntactic variability amongst
languages
Principles and
Parameters is
also known as
GB theory. Both
refers to the
same school in
the generative
tradition
grammar of
phrase
structure.
Within this
framework goal
of linguistics is
to identify all
the principles
and parameters
that are
universal to
human
language.

13. Some of the most
important technical
innovations are:
1. The generalization of
X-bar theory into the
bare phrase structure.
Bottom-up sentence
construction/ Top-down….
x-bar.
2. Eliminating the
distinction between
deep structure and
surface structure.
3. The elimination of the
notion of government.
4. The idea that syntactic
derivations proceed by
clearly delineated stages
called phases.
5. The inclusion of a
single point of
interaction between
syntax and the interfaces;
called Spell out.
Two Basic Theories
Related To The
Economy:
Economy of derivation;
movements (i.e.
Transformations) only
occur in order to match
interpretable features
with uninterpretable
features.
Economy of
representation;
grammatical structures
must exist for a purpose.
MP is a major
line of inquiry
developed
inside
generative
grammar,
Chomsky
presents MP as a
program not as
a theory. For
Chomsky there
are minimalist
questions and
there answers
can form a
theory. The one
question which
plays most
crucial role is;
why language
has the
properties it
has?

14. CONCULSION:
 Chomsky brought revolution in the world of linguistics; by
focusing on syntax. That’s the reason why he was voted
as one of world’s top public intellectuals. From 1950 till
now he is continuously working hard; bringing positive
changes to his theories; facing criticism and moving ahead
with his head held high. His works at first faced
criticism, but later accepted by other linguists and
explored further. His latest work Minimalist Program
faced criticism too, but by his past records he proved that
he takes them positively and keeps on striving for better
results. That’s the reason why he is called father of
modern linguistics.