ADVANCED LINGUISTICS

THE ERA OF CHOMSKY

Arranged to fulfill the task of Courses Advanced Linguistics
Lecture : Dr. Supeno, M.Hum.

GROUP 4
Agus Jamil : 20207470103
Dadang Hidayat : 20207470090
Dyah Arum Pratiwi : 20207470031
Nurhayati : 20207470071
Pipit Wahyu Saputri : 20207470010

PROGRAM STUDI PENDIDIKAN BAHASA INGGRIS FAKULTAS BAHASA DAN SENI

UNIVERSITAS INDRAPRASTA PGRI
2021
 PREFACE

Praise the presence of Allah SWT who has given His grace and guidance so that I can
complete this paper entitled “The Era of Chomsky” on time. The purpose of the writing of this
paper is to fulfill the group assignment of Dr. Supeno, M.Hum in the course Advanced
Linguistics. In addition, this paper also aims to add insight into "The Era of Chomsky" for
readers as well as for writers.
Thank to Dr. Supeno, M.Hum, as a lecturer in the Advanced Linguistics course who has
given this assignment so that he can add knowledge and insight according to the field of study
we are working on.
We would also like to thank all those who have shared some of their knowledge so that
we can complete this paper.
We realize that the paper we write is far from perfect. Therefore, we will wait for
constructive criticism and suggestions for the perfection of this paper.

Unindra , April 24, 2021

Fourth Group

4th Group – The Era of Noam Chomsky Page i

 TABLE OF CONTENTS

PREFACE ................................................................................................................................. i
TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................................................. ii
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................... 1
A. Background of the Paper ........................................................................... 1
B. Problems Formulation ............................................................................... 3
C. Purposes of the Paper ................................................................................ 4
CHAPTER II DISCUSSIONS ................................................................................................... 5
A. Modern Thinking of Chomsky .................................................................... 5
B. An Innate Capacity for Language .............................................................. 6
C. Grammatical Language .............................................................................. 7
CHAPTER III CONCLUSION ................................................................................................... 8
A. Conclusion .................................................................................................. 8
B. Suggestion .................................................................................................. 9
REFERENCES .......................................................................................................................... 10

4th Group – The Era of Noam Chomsky Page ii

 CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the paper

Who is Noam Chomsky? Noam Chomsky is known as the father of modern
linguistics. Back in 1957, Chomsky, with his revolutionary book “Syntactic Structures,” laid
the foundation of his non-empiricist theory of language. Two years later, with his review
of B. F. Skinner’s “Verbal Behavior,” he argued that Behaviorism, the dominant approach
to language at the time, was no longer to be the way of studying language. Chomsky was
interested in the underlying structure of language. This shift in focus affected not only
how we view the structure of language, but how it might be learned as well;
Noam Chomsky was born in Philadelphia in 1928. His primary education was in an
"experimental progressive school", and at Central High School, Philadelphia. At the
University of Pennsylvania he studied mathematics, and philosophy and linguistics under
the direction of Zellig Harris. Despite his Ph.D. obtained at the University of Pennsylvania,
most of the time spent completing it was spent at Harvard University between 1951 and
1955. Since 1955 Chomsky has taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and
has been a professor at the Institute since 1976.
At first Chomsky attempted to explain how an ideal language speaker could
generate and understand new and unique grammatical sentences without having to
encounter them in practice. Then he tried to show that a finite and detailed set of finite
transformation rules forms the "competence" of an ideal language user, and this
competence would produce grammatical sentences. Yg to Chomsky, "performance" which
corresponds to a certain number of grammatical sentences expressed by a language
speaker provides evidence (corpus) to see the competence of this person, and he added
that competence did not in itself leading to a clear appreciation and enforcement of
generative rules on the speaker of the language. However, competence should be seen as
equivalent to the speaker's way of making it up in language. In other words, competence
was a possible condition of language ability; competence was integrated with the
speaker, more than in any other way.
Chomsky made the study of language scientific. He demonstrated that despite the
observable variety of the world’s languages, there is likely only one inventory of linguistic
features. All languages — dead, still used, or even future ones — are combinations of
these elements. After Chomsky, linguistics is defined as 'the scientific study of language'—
'language' in the singular.
As Chomsky’s work continued, he posed a novel approach to thinking about
language, called the theory of Universal Grammar. This intricate theory includes the idea
that humans are genetically endowed with knowledge of the linguistic features of which
4th Group – The Era of Noam Chomsky Page 1
 language is composed and the ability to determine how those features are organized into
the language(s) they hear around them. When we treat language as a science, we can:
Start with general theories that explain why languages are the way they are.
Chomsky’s theory, for example, says that there is a universal basis, or faculty, in the mind,
innate in every human and dedicated to language, that incorporates the basic features of
language. What we all do while learning our mother tongue at a tender age, then, is
determine relationships between these features based on the data we get by exposure to
an unorganized and random set of utterances via interaction with other speakers.
Then, these theories generate testable hypotheses, rules, and falsifiable predictions
about what occurs in a language, relative to all human languages. The data used to test
these hypotheses are native speakers’ intuitions on the grammatical and ungrammatical
nature of the sentences of their language: What we study is what people implicitly know
about their language. We do not study whether sentences abide by the ‘rules’ of
grammar, but whether grammatical and ungrammatical sentences can be explained with
the hypotheses we make.
To give an example, we don’t study why 'He love mangoes' is incorrect; rather, we
investigate why 'John eats occasionally mangos' is not a well-formed sentence in English,
while it is perfectly grammatical in Greek. What prevents the adverb 'occasionally' from
being placed between the verb 'eats' and the noun 'mangos' in English, but not in Greek?
Or take Sicilian and Italian, for example — what makes them so grammatically
different? By examining native speakers’ underlying knowledge we get a better
understanding of how the mind works: language is a window into the mind.
And finally, we see how well these theories can accommodate empirical data. This
can result in hypotheses being changed, refined, or even abandoned after they are tested.
As our theories about the structure of language grow, they help to inform theories of how
languages might be learned. In linguistics, as in the other sciences, we aim at
explaining some data and not everything — making small steps at a time.
Noam Chomsky became one of the most influential linguists of the twentieth
century and still today he dominated the scene of theoretical linguistics. He initiated a
new approach to the empirical investigation of the human mind and, in particular,
linguistic competence. From his perspective, linguistics is a field concerned with the
development and structure of the language faculty and its interfaces (Collins: 2008: 1). He
had revolutionized the discipline of linguistics with his much-talked-about theory of
Transformational Generative Grammar (TGG), in which he emphasized that the mental
capacity of generating sentences with the use of unconscious knowledge of language
which he called as Universal Grammar (UG). He said, TGG attempts to specify ‘what the
speaker actually knows’ (Chomsky, 1965: 8). He asserted that human brain was
biologically programmed to learn language, so language faculty is innate. For him, mind
4th Group – The Era of Noam Chomsky Page 2
 works during the course of learning a language. These innate and mentalist views made
his theory distinct, placing him in head- on collision with behaviorism, which was much in
fashion during the first half of the twentieth century.
There was the relationship between linguistics and logic according modern views
and approaches. Linguistic argumentation is needed for analyzing a language system that
uses the meaning expressions in a sentence to provide the complete meaning of the
sentence, as dependence between expressions. The connection between expressions
enhances the overall meaning from the fundamentals of the sentence structure in the
logical relationship between ideas; where there lies a relation between words and
thought, which is dependent on the logic of combined utterances.
Human language is a linguistic object. Humans with all their limitations will always
try to interpret the universe with their language. Factuality (facts), reality (reality) and
actuality (actuality) are scientific methodological concepts that are used as references in
linguistic studies. One of the goals of learning a language is a theoretical goal. If seen,
linguistics is studied theoretically. Because of the fact, in studying language or describing
it based on linguistic concepts. Not building a theory based on a particular language, but
language based on linguistic theory.
Humans have since brought linguistic potential, in the form of a complete language
tool. Thinking is speaking. So language problems are very complex, not only about facts
and realities which are represented by sound. However, language boundaries develop in
children spontaneously, without conscious effort and formal regulation. Anyway, it can be
implemented by those who listen.
In linguistics, a language is studied based on its levels, the history of language
development, and comparing one language with another. So that it is found a relationship
between one language construction and another based on the laws and rules that bind it.
In language there is what is known as folk language, namely descriptions or beliefs
of lay people about language that are not based on research. After all-out criticism
appeared so that it became a scientific theory. Scientific theory can be said to be a
modern-day theory that gave birth to many modern linguistic figures, among them Noam
Chomsky. He became very well known for his theory, Generative Transformation. The
emergence of this theory, a new linguistic phase, a scientific revolution in the field of
linguistics.

B. Problems formulation
a. How is the modern thinking of Chomsky?
b. How is an Innate Capacity for Language?
c. What is the grammatical language?

4th Group – The Era of Noam Chomsky Page 3

C. Purposes of the paper
a. Knowing the modern thinking of Chomsky
b. Knowing an Innate Capacity for Language
c. Knowing the language is grammatical

4th Group – The Era of Noam Chomsky Page 4

 CHAPTER II
DISCUSSION

I. Modern Thinking of Chomsky

There are broadly three contributions that Chomsky made to linguistics, which
means also to modern thought.
a. First, Chomsky refined his arguments and prepared them for publication in an
article written in 1968 and published in 1971 as "Deep structure, surface structure,
and semantic interpretation". It shifts linguistics from a strictly descriptive and
inductive level (the level of endless cataloging of speech which then becomes a
reference source for grammar to the level of "deep structure" and ideal
competence, levels that open up the creative aspects of language. In short,
Chomsky points out that language is more than its material act. Chomsky repeated
the "definitive disproof'” with changed examples. - this time either (a) John's uncle
or (b) the person who is the brother of John's mother or father or the husband of the
sister of John's father or mother or (c) the person who is the son of one of John's
grandparents but is not his father, or the husband of a daughter of one of John's
grandparents is to be inserted in the context Bill realized that the bank robber was
__ (Huck and Goldsmith, 1995: 67)
b. Second, he was the first to develop a reassessment of language on the grounds that
language ability is not acquired inductively through behavioral conditioning is about
response stimulation, but is a consequence of innate human nature. Linguistics and
creativity do not come from outside, but always exist as an a priori state exercising
control Third, the difference between "competence" and "performance". According
to Chomsky, "performance" which corresponds to a certain number of grammatical
sentences expressed by a language speaker provides evidence (corpus) to see the
competence of this person, and he adds that competence does not in itself lead to a
clear appreciation and enforcement of generative rules on the speaker of the
language. However, competence must be seen as equivalent to the speaker's way of
making it up in language. In other words, competence is a possible condition of
language ability; competence is integrated with the speaker, more than in any other
way.

II. An Innate Capacity for Language

One of journal quote the sentence from Chomsky that “Everyone working on
language, myself included, focuses attention on ‘differences between languages’. If we
didn’t, we would conclude that whatever language we happen to be looking at is innate”.
That’s mean we need to consider one other side of Chomsky's theory of language before
4th Group – The Era of Noam Chomsky Page 5
 delving into his works a little. This is related to his attempt to simplify his theory of
generative grammar by relating it to the notion of "cognitive capacity". Because he
believes that inductively we cannot explain language skills and language competence
(which requires language creativity), or within the framework of the stimulus-response
theory, in an effort to explain the nature of human language, Chomsky relies on the
notion of language as something innate and innate and unique in humans. In particular he
believed that Descartes' view of language and thought was so closely related that
knowledge of language could open up knowledge of man. Therefore, for the inventor of
this generative grammar, the fundamentals of language are part of human psychology -
psychology that is implemented as a theory of the ability of the human mind. Thus, the
origin of language competence is more psychological in nature; then, shouldn't we say
that the origin of language is in the field of psychological studies? In Chomsky's view it
was influenced by Descartes and the scientific rationalist tradition of the seventeenth
century. Rather than giving language an autonomous status - as was the case in the
twentieth century with the structure list views of Saussure - seventh century rationalism
saw language as an expression of the psychological subject. People believe that it is only
by identifying with tradition that we do justice to the creative and dynamic essence of
language, and refrain from regressing towards attempts at empirical explanation. The real
illustration that he built is to say that language is not innate is to say that there is no
difference between my granddaughter, a rock and a rabbit. In other words, if you take a
rock, a rabbit and my granddaughter and put them in a community where people are
talking English, they’ll all learn English. If people believe that, then they believe that
language is not innate. If they believe that there is a difference between my
granddaughter, a rabbit and a rock, then they believe that language is innate.

III. Grammatical Language

Following Chomsky's approach to Syntactic Structures, the structure of a generative
grammar will have three main types (keep in mind that grammar describes how the
sentence is rendered): Limited state grammar: only linear, so sentences are displayed
using simple left-to-right choices and those selected in front limit the options behind
them. Phrase structure grammar: this relates to the effort of parsing (the classification of
the elements that make up the "surface" structure of a sentence), and to the dual
meanings it may produce in the same phrase arrangement: "old man and woman"
(following the example Lyons) can mean "old man and (old woman)", or "(old man and
woman)". Transformational grammar: this is a way of forming a new structure (such as
active to passive form) through a set of rules based on the horizontal chain of basic
phrase structures (represented by phrase markers) and on the vertical "trees" that appear
at the time of the assessment. Chomsky was able to show that both phrase structure
4th Group – The Era of Noam Chomsky Page 6
 grammar and transformational grammar is stronger (i.e. can do more) than finite state
grammar, and that transformational grammar is stronger than phrase structure grammar.
In essence transformational grammar is Chomsky's contribution to general theory of
grammar. The other two grammars - although not previously formalized - existed in
linguistics prior to the appearance of Chomsky's work. It is transformational grammar
alone that can form the ground rules that are covered by ideal speakers-listeners in a
language, say English. The logic behind transformational grammar is that if each utterance
contains a unique rule as a prerequisite for its acceptance, there are too many rules to
consider. It is clear that the number of rules does not equal the number of utterances;
this is what any grammar contains. On the other hand, Chomsky points out that if various
sentences - which seem to differ on the "surface" level of the grammatical structure of
phrases - are actually transformations of one and the same rules, then these grammars
can become very complex and lack explanatory power. Therefore, the grammar of the
phrase structure will become too complicated if it is stuffed with all the rules of sentence
formation for ideal speakers. In short, it can be said that a transformational grammar is
one way that the rules of sentence formation are reduced to the smallest extent. From a
somewhat different angle, a transformational grammar that provides rules of
competence is equivalent to Chomsky's notion of "inner structure".

4th Group – The Era of Noam Chomsky Page 7

 CHAPTER III
CONCLUSION

A. Conclusion
Noam Chomsky is one of the most influential linguists of the twentieth century and still
today he dominates the scene of theoretical linguistics. He is most famous for his unique
linguistic philosophy. Noam Chomsky was born in Philadelphia in 1928. His primary
education was in an "experimental progressive school", and at Central High School,
Philadelphia. At the University of Pennsylvania he studied mathematics, and philosophy and
linguistics under the direction of Zellig Harris. Despite his Ph.D. obtained at the University of
Pennsylvania, most of the time spent completing it was spent at Harvard University
between 1951 and 1955. Since 1955 Chomsky has taught at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology and has been a professor at the Institute since 1976.
Chomsky points out that language is more than its material act. Second, he was the first
to develop a reassessment of language on the grounds. Third, the difference between
"competence" and "performance". Then he tries to show that a finite and detailed set of
finite transformation rules forms the "competence" of an ideal language user, and this
competence will produce grammatical sentences. Chomsky has three contributions that
made to linguistics, which means also to modern thought. Chomsky's work in linguistics has
had profound implications for modern psychology, philosophy and science. The branch of
knowledge which we call ‘biolinguistics’ today took direct inspiration from him. For
Chomsky, linguistics is a branch of cognitive psychology. Genuine insights in linguistics imply
concomitant understandings of the aspects of mental processing and human nature. One
consequence of such insights is that linguistics, psychology and philosophy are no longer to
be regarded as separate and autonomous disciplines (Lyons, 1991: 125). Chomsky has
placed linguistics at the core of studies of the mind. According to him, linguistic theory must
account for universal similarities between all languages. His contribution to the cognitive
sciences – fields that seek to understand how we think, learn, and perceive – emerges from
his insightful theories. His unique philosophy of language as given linguistics is a respectable
place in the wider sphere of epistemology. Lyons (1991: 9-10) concludes: ‘If it is now widely
recognized as a branch of science which is worthwhile pursuing, not only for its own sake,
but also for the contributions it can make to other disciplines, it is very largely due to
Chomsky.’ Chomsky is a champion of great advancement of knowledge in contemporary
period.

4th Group – The Era of Noam Chomsky Page 8

B. Suggestion

That's the paper we made, hopefully it can be useful for readers if there are suggestions
and criticisms that you want to convey, please tell us.
If there is an error please forgive and understand it, because we are servants of Allah
who are not free from mistakes and khilaf.

4th Group – The Era of Noam Chomsky Page 9

 REFERENCES

Barman, B. 2012. THE LINGUISTIC PHILOSOPHY OF NOAM CHOMSKY. Vols. LI-LII

Collins, John. 2008. CHOMSKY: A GUIDE FOR THE PERPLEXED. London: Continuum International
Publishing Group. ISBN: 978-0-8264-8662-2 (Hardback) and ISBN: 978-0-8264-8663-9
(Paperback)
Huck, Goffrey J. and Goldsmith, John A. 1996. IDEOLOGY AND LINGUISTICS THEORY – Noam
Chomsky and Deep Structure Debates. London: Routledge.
ISBN 0-415-11735-6 (hbk) and ISBN 0-415-15313-1 (pbk)
Permata, B. A. 2015. Teori Generatif-Generatif-Transformatif Noam Chomsky dan Relevansinya
dalam Pembelajaran Bahasa Arab. Empirisma. Vol. 24 No. 2 Juli 2015 | 179-187
Yacoob, Sholehah. 2016. Mentalist vs Behaviorist : Chomsky`s Linguistic Theory. GJAT. June
2016. VOL 6 ISSUE 1 7. ISSN : 2232-0474 | E-ISSN : 2232-0482. www.gjat.my
http://satupena.id/2016/12/05/linguistik-dan-strukturalisme-noam-chomsky/
http://sastra.um.ac.id/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/010-Keterbatasan-Teori-
Minimalis.dc1.pdf

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