Semantica Generativa

Formalism and Noam Chomsky

Formalism

In mathematics, computer science, and linguistics, a formal language is a set of strings of symbols that may be constrained by rules that are specific to it.

The field of formal language theory studies primarily the purely syntactical aspects of such languages—that is, their internal structural patterns. Formal language theory sprang out of linguistics, as a way of understanding the syntactic regularities of natural languages.

Linguistic Formalism: Traditionally, linguistic theory has been divided between formalists and functionalists. Formalists favor an approach to the study of language which emphasizes abstract, quasi-mathematical theories of linguistic structure based primarily, but not always exclusively, on intuitions of grammaticality. These theories are usually, but not always, discrete: they do not employ statistical methods and avoid continuous structures. One strength of these theories, at least according to proponents, is that they take otherwise vague linguistic intuitions and make them precise and testable.

"The grammatical knowledge of our time has been between two schools of thought, is the functionalism and formalism, the representative of this current is Noam Chomsky. Chomsky defines the idea of ​​a universal grammar that includes principles and parameters that vary between one language and another.

One of the central postulates of formalism is the functional principle of Independence, "... we are forced to conclude that the syntax is autonomous and independent of meaning" (Chomsky)

For Chomsky there is a strong link between language and the mind. Language is a uniquely human characteristic and highly developed psychological processes evident in the species. "Given the complexity of this achievement and its uniqueness in man, it is natural to assume that the study of language contributes significantly to our knowledge of the nature of the human mind and it’s functioning." (Chomsky1978: 7)

A description of human ability and mental processes... Chomsky makes the following statement:

Regarding linguistic theory is an ideal speaker-listener, who knows its language perfectly and not affecting conditions as memory limitations, distractions and mistakes in applying the language to real use.

Noam Chomsky Life

Childhood and Personal life

Avram Noam Chomsky was born on December 7, 1928 in the affluent East Oak Lane neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His father, Dr. William "Zev" Chomsky (1896–1977) had been born in Ukraine, then a part of the Russian Empire, and had fled to the United States in 1913 to avoid conscription into the army. He married Elsie Simonofsky – a native of what is present-day Belarus who grew up in the United States – and they moved to Philadelphia. Politically, Noam's parents were "normal Roosevelt Democrats,"

In 1949, Chomsky married Carol Schatz, a woman he had known since they were both kids. The relationship lasted for 59 years, until she died from cancer in 2008. They had three children together and Schartz worked as an educational specialist in the field of language acquisition in children.

For a short time, between Chomsky’s masters and doctoral studies, the couple lived on a kibbutz in Israel. When they returned, Chomsky continued at the University of Pennsylvania and executed some of his research and writing at Harvard University. His dissertation eventually explored several linguistic ideas he would soon lay out in one of his best-known books on linguistics,

Undergraduate Work

Chomsky began studying philosophy and linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania in 1945.

Zellig Harris, an American scholar touted for discovering structural linguistis (breaking structural parts o levels). Harris was moved by Chomsky’s great potential. Harris introduced Chomsky to Nathan Fine, a Harvard mathematician, and two philosophers, Nelson Goodman, and Nathan Salmon.

1951- His Master thesis was titled
The Morphophonemics of Modern Hebrew.

Chomsky earned a BA in 1949 and an MA in 1951.

Chomsky received his PhD in linguistics from the University of Pennsylvania in 1955. He conducted part of his doctoral research during four years at Harvard University as a Harvard Junior Fellow. In his doctoral thesis, he began to develop some of his linguistic ideas

Professional Career

The professorial staff at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) invited him to join their ranks in 1955. He has now worked in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT for over half a century. For his academic pursuits, he has received a multitude of honorary degrees from universities as far flung as the University of Calcutta to the University of Chicago

As a professor, he introduced transformational grammar to the field. His theory asserts that languages are innate and that the differences we see are only due to parameters developed over time in our brains, helping to explain why children are able to learn different languages more easily than adults. One of his most famous contributions to linguistics is what his contemporaries have called the Chomsky Hierarchy, a division of grammar into groups, moving up or down in their expressive abilities. These ideas have had huge ramifications for modern psychology, both raising and answering questions about human nature and how we process information.

Linguistics

Chomskyan linguistics, beginning with his Syntactic Structures, a distillation of his Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory (1955, 75), challenges structural linguistics and introduces transformational grammar.This approach takes utterances (sequences of words) to have a syntax characterized by a formal grammar; in particular, a context-free grammar extended with transformational rules.