This document discusses Noam Chomsky's theory of universal grammar and the "Linguistic Wars" between Chomsky's view and cognitive linguistics. It explores Chomsky's ideas about syntax being hardwired in the brain and governed by universal rules of movement and transformation. It notes that Chomsky believed studying syntax could reveal the nature of the language faculty and brain, while cognitive linguists saw no evidence of a language faculty or universal grammar, viewing language as ordinary cognitive processes. The document also summarizes Chomsky's X-bar theory and notes that he later abandoned this approach, though still believing in a perfect underlying design to language.

1. Remember Chomsky’s famous
example?

2. Why is it important?

3. Is it important?

4. Important because it’s meaningless?

5. • Ideas
• Noun (phrase)
• Idea
• Noun
• Ideas are useful
• The idea is useful
• The ideas are useful

6. • Big
• Adjective
• Green
• Adjective
• Bus
• noun

7. • Finger
• Noun
• Long
• Adjective
• Furiously
• Adverb

8. • Walk
• Verb
• Slowly
• Adverb
• Hit
• Verb
• Silently
• Adverb

9. • Quick
• Adjective
• Quickly
• Adverb

10. • This
• Determiner
• That
• Determiner
• Those
• Determiner

11. • Quietly
• Adverb
• Quiet
• Adjective
• Crazily
• Adverb

12. The quick brown fox …

13. … jumps over the lazy dog

14. Uses ALL the letters in the alphabet

17. The quick brown fox

19. The quick brown fox

20. Those big white bears

21. That crazy tall man

22. These useless little pencils

23. That horrible boring textbook

24. Many colorless green ideas

25. Most long thin snakes

26. My funny furry teddy bear

27. This stupid lazy dog

28. … jumps over the lazy dog

29. Sentence

30. Most quick brown foxes read bad
boring books

31. • Bad
• Adjective
• Books
• Noun (phrase)
• Boring
• Adjective

32. • The
• Determiner
• Big
• Adjective
• My
• Determiner

33. Girls punched my crazy boyfriend

34. Some girls punched my crazy
boyfriend

35. Those crazy little girls punched my
poor boyfriend viciously

36. [My crazy girlfiend] attacked [that poor
boy] [really viciously]

37. [The scary crazy teacher] attacked [the
poor student] [verbally and loudly]

38. [The scary crazy teacher] attacked [the
poor student] [verbally and loudly]
• Attack verbally and loudly
• What does that mean?
• Shout?
• Scream?
• What if we want to say shout or scream?

39. [The scary crazy teacher] screamed at
[the poor student] [really furiously]

40. Screamed at = verb?

41. • At
• Preposition
• Under
• Preposition
• On
• Preposition

42. The loud teacher screamed at the poor
students

43. The rowdy rude students laughed at
the poor pathetic teacher

44. The big brown bear ran towards the
sad boy

45. But this is OK

47. This is OK

48. And this is OK

49. Or this?

50. Jumps doesn’t need an object
(complement)

52. Cognitive Linguistics

53. No language faculty

54. No universal grammar

55. Just ordinary thinking

56. But Chomsky won!!

57. Syntax (grammar) is MOST
IMPORTANT!

58. Study grammar …

59. … and understand the brain!

60. Trees will tell you about the brain!

61. Chomsky’s grammar was triumphant

62. Unique universal grammar

63. The language faculty

64. How language ability REALLY works

65. Forget about meaning!!

66. Forget about it!!!!

67. Meaning isn’t so important

68. SYNTAX is different and special

69. SPECIAL rules

70. Universal Rules

71. In a special part of our brain

72. So how can we understand our
language ability?

73. We are looking for special, universal
rules

74. Why is the –ed before the verb?

75. It’s “she walked”

76. Not she “–ed walk”

77. That’s crazy

78. Well, we are looking for universals

79. Look

80. Aux is before the verb

81. The tense bit is BEFORE the verb

82. Before the verb

83. We want UNIVERSAL rules

84. • She can walk
• She would walk
• She must walk
• She should walk
• She will walk
• She –ed walk
• It’s UNIFORM!!

85. There must be INVISIBLE movement

86. Or it would be untidy

87. It wouldn’t look UNIVERSAL!

88. Keep it UNIVERSAL by moving stuff!

89. Don’t forget that in the 60s and 70s …

90. Lots of people thought this was wrong

91. But Chomsky’s UNIVERSAL theory
won!!

92. I’m the winner

93. Special rules of SYNTAX …

94. … in a special part of our brain

95. So how about OTHER movement?

96. Did she walk?

97. Maybe the tense bit is moving?

98. To an Operator position

99. Makes a question sentence

100. So we’re getting NEW categories

101. Predicate Phrase

102. Predicate Phrase (just means ordinary
sentence)

103. Predicate Phrase (not a question)

104. Predicate Phrase: more complex VP

105. Carries tense, aspect, mood etc

106. And an Operator node

107. Things can move there

108. Change the kind of sentence

109. Did that girl open the door?

110. Magic!

111. Movement

112. Emi can kick her boyfriend

113. Emi will kick her boyfriend

114. Emi should kick her boyfriend

115. Emi DID kick her boyfriend

116. Emi kicked her boyfriend

117. Wait a minute!
• Emi can kick her boyfriend
• Emi could kick her boyfriend
• Emi would kick her boyfriend
• Emi should kick her boyfriend
• Emi will kick her boyfriend
• Emi DID kick her boyfriend
• Emi kicked her boyfriend
• Why isn’t it UNIFORM?

118. Emi can kick her boyfriend

119. Emi will kick her boyfriend

120. Emi should kick her boyfriend

121. Emi DID kick her boyfriend

122. Emi kicked her boyfriend

123. Invisible movement!

124. It IS all the same!

125. It is perfect!

126. Universal Grammar is real!

127. All languages are the same!

128. Invisible movement explains
everything!

129. But what about this?

130. Emi should have kicked her boyfriend

131. Emi must have kicked her boyfriend

132. Invisible movement?

133. Maybe unnecessary?

134. Only move if necessary?

135. Minimalism!!

136. But it is only necessary ….

137. … if you want uniformity!!

138. So how about OTHER movement?

139. Move one bit

140. Can give us uniformity

141. Any other ways to get uniformity?

142. Because it’s UNIVERSAL grammar

143. Things should be the same

144. X-bar theory

145. XP, X’, X

146. N, N’, NP

147. V, V’, VP

148. P, P’, PP

149. Perfect

150. Everything is the same!

151. No wait!

152. What about S?

153. And what about aux?

154. What are we going to do about aux?

155. Aux, Aux’, AuxP?

156. • She can walk
• She would walk
• She must walk
• She should walk
• She will walk
• She –ed walk
• It’s UNIFORM!!

157. Well aux carries tense, aspect, mood
etc

158. Aux is the Inflectional information

159. Maybe it’s an INFLECTIONAL phrase?

160. How about like this?

161. All the same!

162. Perfect!

163. It’s perfect!

164. In the beginning was SYNTAX!

165. Rules of SYNTAX wired in our brains!

166. Maybe you’re asking …

167. Do we still believe in X-bar theory?

168. No.

169. Chomsky abandoned it in the 1990s

170. But he still believes in a perfect design!

171. But that’s another story

172. What was the main disagreement in
the Linguistic Wars?
• The importance of meaning/semantics

173. What do Cognitive Linguists say?
• There’s no language faculty
• There’s no universal grammar
• Just ordinary thought processes

174. • Chomsky said we should study SYNTAX in
order to understand the brain.

175. She walked

176. That girl opened the door

177. Did she walk?

178. X-bar theory

179. NP

180. • In X-bar theory, the Sentence (S) was replaced
with IP.

181. What happened to X-bar theory?
• It was abandoned in the 1990s.