A Companion to Chomsky

Noam Chomsky is first and foremost a linguist, but his revolutionary ideas about grammar have had a profound impact upon philosophy and the new field of cognitive science that emerged in large part from his work. Balancing theoretical rigor with accessibility to the non-specialist, this collection of 43 original essays from a diverse international team of linguists and philosophers offers comprehensive coverage of his contributions to universal grammar, language acquisition, linguistic diversity, semantics and speech pragmatics, as well as to philosophy of language, science and mind. The text is organized into sections that include:

• The historical development of the successive theories of grammar, from Chomsky's early work on the formal hierarchy of languages; to his work with Morris Halle on phonology; to the evolution of his "principles and parameters" approach to the immense diversity of human languages; up to the radical simplification of his theories that has been the aim of the Minimalist Program
• Contemporary controversies surrounding the Minimalist Program and the status of parametric variation between languages, as well as work on secondary language acquisition and multi-lingualism
• Comparisons between Chomsky's generative methodology and usage-based and general statistical learning approaches to language understanding
• The significance of Chomsky's work for theories of linguistic perception, processing, and acquisition, including discussions of sign languages, atypical language development, and the neurophysiological bases of language
• The influence of Chomsky's work on natural language semantics, linguistic pragmatics, and philosophy of language, as well as on "modularity" theories of mind
• Chomsky's rationalist, critique of behaviorism and related empiricist approaches to psychology, and his contributions to a "Galilean" methodology in cognitive science and philosophy of mind
• A brief discussion of the relation of his work in linguistics and cognitive science to the philosophical background of his quite independent work on political issues
• A concluding essay by Chomsky himself, reflecting on the history and character of his work

Special efforts have been made to explain technical terms and issues as they arise.

A new addition to the acclaimed Wiley Blackwell Companions to Philosophy series, A Companion to Chomsky is an indispensable resource for philosophers, linguists, psychologists, advanced undergraduate and graduate students, and general readers with interest in the life and legacy of Noam Chomsky.