Abstract

This dissertation is a rhetorical case study of the issues and arguments surrounding a schism that developed between Noam Chomsky and some linguists working in his program, shortly after the publication of Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. These linguists began exploring a line of thought that led them to the conclusion syntax and semantics interpenetrate in deep and inseparable ways. While this conclusion is latent in Chomsky's work of the period, he rejected the new developments (which took the name, generative semantics, and returned to the hard line position of his earlier writings, that progress is only possible by analyzing syntax largely in isolation. The battle over these rival conceptions lasted about a decade, generating a good deal of noise, lasting bitterness, and an impressive amount of knowledge. ;The case study has three main sections. The first section is a straightforward historical narrative of the schism, focussing largely on the generativists, and drawing on interviews with all of the principals. The second discusses the main arguments about data and theory, ranging from the early technical differences about deep structure to later, more fundamental, disagreements about competence and performance. The last section attends to more general argumentation, such as appeals to simplicity and accusations concerning restrictiveness, and to the ethos of generative semantics, an exuberant blend of counter-culture sensibilities and the celebration of anomalous data. These divisions, however, are not absolute. There is analysis in the narrative chapters, narrative in the analysis. ;A word about rhetoric, as in rhetorical case study: it is not the ordinary language term here, meaning specious argumentation or florid vacuity, but the technical term, meaning the study of suasion. I take the position--supported not only by a good deal of recent work in the rhetoric of science, but work in sociology, history and philosophy of science--that persuasion plays a critical role in knowledge construction. My approach is pluralistic, but draws heavily on ancient notions of rhetoric, particularly sophistic notions, which link rhetoric to epistemology; the tools from that tradition I use most frequently include coraxes, topoi, and enthymemes