220px noam chomsky portrait 2017

Noam Chomsky

By john.hauk37

  • Birth

    Noam Chomsky (91) is an American Linguist, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic and political activist. He has contributed major works in the fields of analytic philosophy and linguistics, and is considered one of the founders of cognitive science. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noam_Chomsky

  • Start of his Education

    Start of his Education
    Begins general studies at the Univ. of Pennsylvania, where he studies philosophy, logic and languages. Later, he will meet Russian linguist Zellig Harris, where his is introduced to theoretical linguistics. He is convinced to major in the subject and writes ' Morphophonemics of Modern Hebrew' for his honors thesis

  • First Publication

    Publishes 'Systems of Syntactic Analysis', which is highly critical of behavioral currents in linguistics.

  • MA and PHD

    In 1951 Chomsky receives his MA from the University of
    Pennsylvania . Between 1951 to 1955, Chomsky becomes a member of the Society of Fellows at Harvard University, where he undertook research in transformational grammer, which became his doctoral thesis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformational_grammar

  • MIT

    Chomsky starts his career as an assistant professor at MIT, spending half of his time on mechanical translation and the other teaching linguistics and philosophy.

  • First Major Work

    First Major Work
    Chomsky publishes his major book called ' Syntactic Structures'. It introduces rules that break down sentences, that then are recombined with new rules called transformations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syntactic_Structures

  • Institute for Advanced Study

    Institute for Advanced Study
    While a National Science Foundation fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study, Chomsky created or co-created the universal grammar theory, the generative grammar theory, the Chomsky hierarchy, and the minimalist program.

  • Later works

    Later works
    Chomsky adds to his publication list on linguistics with 'Aspects of the Theory of Syntax' (1965), Cartesian Linguistics and Theory of Generative Grammar in 1966. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3U6MsdBalg

  • Second Book

    Written in 1955, but published in 1975, Logical Structures in Linguistic Theory is a major work depicting natural language syntax.

  • Retirement

    Retirement
    Chomsky retires from MIT, but continues his research and seminars in various areas of study as a emeritus of the university.