Abstract

This book, a revised and expanded version of a paper delivered at an international congress of linguists, is chiefly concerned with technical questions in the science of linguistics, particularly the superiority of transformational models over taxonomic models in developing an adequate theory of syntax and phonemics. Underlying these technical questions is a sustained criticism of traditional empiricist theories of knowledge. The taxonomic model assumes that the scientific approach to language is an atomistic one, classifying the basic invariant units, sounds, or grammatical slots and fillers, and then specifying the laws that govern the combination of these units. The transformational model, Chomsky's own development, does not presuppose fully specified units, but intricate mental structures whose laws give a determination to the component parts. As a professional scientist, Chomsky argues that the transformational model is superior on three levels of adequacy: observational, descriptive, and explanatory. As a part-time philosopher, he feels that such structures reflect the general nature of the mind and show the inadequacy of atomistic accounts of mental phenomena.—E. M. M.