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8
Chomsky’s influence
Noam Chomsky is the world’s most influential linguist. His influence can be
seen in many ways, from the expansion of linguistics as an academic subject in
the wake of his early work on the nature of grammars to the way in which even
linguists who do not agree with him define their position in relation to his. His
ideas have attracted many brilliant people to take up linguistics and contribute
to the study of language. It has become common to talk of a ‘Chomskyan revolution’
in linguistics beginning in the late 1950s or early 1960s as the influence
of his teaching permeated the way in which language was viewed and was discussed.
If the term ‘revolution’ may be a little over-dramatic, linguistics certainly
took what Kasher (1991: viii) calls a ‘Chomskyan Turn’ at that point. In
this section we look at some of the major features of Chomskyan linguistics
which distinguish it from earlier approaches.
Chomsky is also a renowned political philosopher and activist, but while his
views in the political field have been argued to be congruent with his views
about language, this part of his work will not be considered here (this is covered
in works such as McGilvray 2005; Smith 1999). Furthermore, since Chomsky’s
ideas about language have implications for the workings of the human mind,
Chomsky’s work is also regularly cited by psychologists. Again, that aspect of
his work will receive very little attention here.
The centrality of syntax
Traditional European grammar usually gives syntax a rather minor role. To a
certain extent, of course, this depends on the language being described, with
descriptions of more analytic languages perforce devoting more space to
syntactic matters. But descriptions of highly inflecting European languages