Foundations of generative linguistics

Abstract

This paper gives a broad overview of the ideas underlying the Chomskyan approach to linguistics. It identifies the main innovation of generative grammar in linguistics and clarifies some recurring misunderstandings about the language faculty, recursion and language universals. The paper also discusses some of the main empirical results of generative syntax.

Some biolinguistic remarks

“…As a result of unfortunate early popularization and misplaced emphasis, many people still think of Chomsky as the person whose main scientific discovery was deep structure and transformational grammar. 1 But the concept of transformation has already been used in linguistics before (see Dékány 2019), and deep structure has not been part of the theory since the 1990s. 2 To consider Chomsky the theorist of deep structure is not more adequate than considering Darwin as the theorist of gemmules, the particles that were supposed to be transferred to the gonads by every body part to account for inheritance in his version of the pangenesis theory.…”