Noam Chomsky

Avram Noam Chomsky (/ˈnoʊm ˈtʃɒmski/; born December 7, 1928) is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, logician, social critic, and political activist. Sometimes described as "the father of modern linguistics," Chomsky is also a major figure in analytic philosophy, and one of the founders of the field of cognitive science. He has spent most of his career at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he is Institute Professor Emeritus, and is the author of over 100 books, primarily on politics and linguistics. Ideologically, he aligns with anarcho-syndicalism and libertarian socialism.

Born to a middle-class Ashkenazi Jewish family in Philadelphia, Chomsky developed an early interest in anarchism from alternative bookstores in New York City. At the age of sixteen he began studies at the University of Pennsylvania, taking courses in linguistics, mathematics, and philosophy. He married fellow linguist Carol Schatz in 1949. From 1951 to 1955 he was appointed to Harvard University's Society of Fellows, where he developed the theory of transformational grammar for which he was awarded his doctorate in 1955. That year he began teaching at MIT, in 1957 emerging as a significant figure in the field of linguistics for his landmark work Syntactic Structures, which laid the basis for the scientific study of language, while from 1958 to 1959 he was a National Science Foundation fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study. He is credited as the creator or co-creator of the universal grammar theory, the generative grammar theory, the Chomsky hierarchy, and the minimalist program. Chomsky also played a pivotal role in the decline of behaviorism, being particularly critical of the work of B. F. Skinner.

Chomsky (surname)

Chomsky (Belarusian: Хомскі, Russian: Хомский, Ukrainian: Хомський, Hebrew: חומסקי‎, "from (Vyoska) Khomsk (nearby Brest, now Belarus)") is a surname of Belarusian origin. Notable people with the surname include:

Elsie, William, Avram Noam, Carol, Marvin, and Aviva are all closely related. William and Elsie were husband and wife. Avram Noam, generally referred by his given name Noam, is their son. Carol and Noam were married until Carol's death in 2008; Aviva is their daughter. Marvin is Noam's cousin. Also, Judith is Noam's sister in-law.

Chomsky (disambiguation)

Chomsky may refer to :

Music

See also