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Title: Aspects of the Theory of Syntax by Noam Chomsky ISBN: 0-262-53007-4 Publisher: MIT Press Pub. Date: 15 March, 1969 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $23.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.44 (9 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: The final account
Comment: This is the single most influential book in the cognitive sciences. Everybody in that field defines their position in relation to this book.
Has it stood the test of time?
The fundamental distinction in the book is between 'competence' and 'performance.' We can have a hard, mathematical and super precise science of competence, but not of performance. Performance, at the time this book was written, was a "mystery." Chomsky went on to claim that it would always be a mystery.
As it turns out, Chomsky's distinction (which is fairly isomorphic to Kant's position of "knowledge" and "faith," whether he knows it or not) has turned out wrong. Sociobiologists have basically made "Orwell's problem" (why do we know so little about such obvious stuff?) into a permanent fact of human nature. It is effectively the case that all societies have elites, they all have crime, and they all exercise violence to lesser or greater degrees. And if you read Chomsky's work in politics (all of which is in the realm of performance or Kantian faith) he comes out and says it: every state that has ever existed is run by gangsters.
What of the idea of 'competence'? It will probably last a long time, it may very well be the equivalent of mass in physics. But there are problems with it. Namely that it treats the person who applies it and is alive as though he or she is dead. It is essentially a self-fulfilling prophecy that is derivate on the Universal self fulfilling prophecy and tries to usurp the Universal's power. My guess is that it is like Freud's Oedipus. It has overwhelming heuristic and pragmatic value, but no ontological power.
(What is it with these Jews? They come up with the best ideas!)
Rating: 5
Summary: Aspects is like space
Comment: It's a little strange to find or place reviews of such a seminal and magisterial work on a commercial web site. Aspects (and Syntactic Structures) essentially created the intellectual space in which linguists have operated for almost half a century. Not reading Aspects is only possible in the way that not reading "Origin of Species" is. An interested reader can certainly learn the same stuff another way -- more easily, in fact -- but when you come to understand it, you will want to get to the source for yourself.
Rating: 5
Summary: The 60s Linguistics Nuclear-Bomb: Cannot be ignored.
Comment: Joe from Providence.
I was a linguistics student when this book came out. Students and instructors alike were baffled, spent hours trying to understand it, and loved it or berated it. But no one could remain neutral about Chomsky's Theory of Syntax.
Many years after graduate courses in different linguistic grammars, I picked it up again, and it is a comparatively easy read for present or former lingusitics students.
The initial problem readers encountered was Chomsky's presupposition of a wide knowledge of all aspects of linguistics (and some major theories of learning behavior)-- he presupposes that you have grasped the sources that he either is reacting to or revising: What came before is what forced Chomsky to begin creating his theory of syntax. This is NOT like his later books: this IS syntax, the "technical kind." And that is partially what makes the book so important.
Regardless of your opinion or reaction to this book: NO ONE CAN IGNORE IT, or its effect on linguistics after its publication.
IT IS NOT SUFFICIENT TO READ 'WHAT SOMEONE SAYS CHOMSKY SAID.' Read the original.
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Title: Syntactic Structures (2nd Edition) by Noam Chomsky ISBN: 3110172798 Publisher: Walter de Gruyter, Inc. Pub. Date: 31 December, 2002 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: The Minimalist Program (Current Studies in Linguistics) by Noam Chomsky ISBN: 0262531283 Publisher: MIT Press Pub. Date: 28 September, 1995 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
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Title: On Language: Chomsky's Classic Works Language and Responsibility and Reflections on Language in One Volume by Noam Chomsky, Mitsou Ronat ISBN: 1565844750 Publisher: New Press Pub. Date: November, 1998 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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Title: New Horizons in the Study of Language and Mind by Noam Chomsky ISBN: 0521658225 Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pub. Date: 15 May, 2000 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: Knowledge of Language : Its Nature, Origins, and Use by Noam Chomsky ISBN: 0275917614 Publisher: Praeger Publishers Pub. Date: 14 January, 1986 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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