Cartesian linguistics

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Cartesian Linguistics

In this extraordinarily original and profound work, Noam Chomsky discusses themes in the study of language and mind since the end of the sixteenth century in order to explain the motivations and methods that underlie his work in linguistics, the science of mind, and even politics. This edition includes a new and specially writtenintroduction by James McGilvray, contextualizing the work for the twenty-first century. It has been made more accessible to a larger audience; all the French and German in the original edition has been translated, and the notes and bibliography have been brought up to date. The relationship between the original edition (published in 1966) and contemporary biolinguistic work is also explained. Thischallenging volume is an important contribution to the study of language and mind, and to the history of these studies since the end of the sixteenth century. NOAM CHOMSKY is Institute Professor and Professor of Linguistics (Emeritus) in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Cartesian Linguistics
A Chapter in the History of RationalistThought
Noam Chomsky
Professor of Linguistics Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Third Edition
edited with a new introduction by

James McGilvray

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge UniversityPress, New York www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521881760 © James McGilvray 2009 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provision of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published in print format 2009

ISBN-13ISBN-13 ISBN-13

978-0-511-50685-7 978-0-521-88176-0 978-0-521-70817-3

eBook (EBL) hardback paperback

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ContentsIntroduction to the third edition james m c gilvray Cartesian Linguistics Acknowledgments Introduction Creative aspect of language use Deep and surface structure Description and explanation in linguistics Acquisition and use of language Summary Notes Bibliography Index

page 1 53 55 57 59 78 93 98 107 109 147 154

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Introduction to the third edition
James McGilvray

I

An overviewCartesian Linguistics (CL) began as a manuscript written while Noam Chomsky was a 35-year-old fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies. An early version of it was prepared for presentation as a Christian Gauss lecture on Criticism at Princeton University early in 1964. Perhaps because it proved beyond the audience, it was not delivered, and Chomsky presented a general lecture on linguisticsas understood at the time. The manuscript, however, was revised and published in 1966. An intellectual tour de force, CL is not an easy text to read, but it is certainly a rewarding one. It is an unprecedented and – so far – unequalled linguistic–philosophical study of linguistic creativity and the nature of the mind that is able to produce it. CL begins by describing the sort of linguisticcreativity that is found with virtually every sentence produced by any person, including young children. As its subtitle (“A Chapter in the History of Rationalist Thought”) suggests it will, though, CL soon turns to focus on the kind of mind that is required to make this sort of creativity possible, and on the best way to study such a mind, and language in it. The seventeenth-century philosopher René...