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Universal Grammer
Spanning the whole of Chomsky's work, the theories correlating to Universal Grammar predate Chomsky as early as 1245, with Roger Bacon's work Overview of Grammar. In an attempt to update this theory, the publication Why Only Us, co-authored with Robert Berwick, in equating that every computational system breaks down into simpler forms, and through a concept called "merge" these simpler forms are able to grow into more complex mechanisms.- Chomsky and Berwick. Why Only Us?. MIT Press. 2016.
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Linguistic Theory
Upon completing his Doctorate, Noam Chomsky explains his linguistic theory in the 1957 publication Syntatic Structures. In this work, Chomsky explains his ideas to present a "formalized theory of linguistic structure". The purpose for this being to give the linguist a system to understand the mechanisms that made up language. -Chomsky 1957, Preface Syntactic Structures. The Hague: Mouton. ISBN 9027933855. -
Transformational Grammar
Further developing his work after Syntatic Structures, Chomsky published Aspects of the Theory of Syntax in 1965, expanding on the ideas of deep structure and a surface structure sentence production in languages. The concept of transformations is explained as structures are "mapped" onto deeper semantic related mechanism, thus organizing these structures through sound, phonology.- Chomsky (1965). Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-53007-4.
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Language Acquisition Device - LAD
A theoretical device, proposed by Chomsky and held as pseudo-science by contemporaries in the field of linguistics, Chomsky's controversial proposal held that as infants, humans have an innate mechanism allowing them to learn language. The reasoning behind this theory was due to the argument of the "poverty of stimulus", in that with such small information and understanding, children learn and develop language quickly.- Chomsky (1965). Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. MIT Press.
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Why Only Us - Talk given by Robert Berwick, co-author Noam Chomsky
