Generative Linguistics: A Historical Perspective

Front Cover
Here together for the first time are all of Frederick J. Newmeyer's writings on the origin and development of generative grammar. Spanning a period of fifteen years, the essays address the nature of the 'Chomskyan Revolution', the deep structure debates of the 1970s, and the attempts to apply generative theory to second language acquisition. These articles, many of which have never been published before, will inevitably fan the fames of controversy still raging in this field. Newmeyer's audacious conclusions and his argument that generative semantics collapsed because it was empirically disproved challenge much current thinking. Written by one of America's most prominent linguists, the essays in Generative Linguistics provide a challenging re-appraisal of the 'Chomskyan Revolution' - the implications of which are still being debated some thirty years further on.

Other editions - View all

About the author (1996)

Frederick J. Newmeyer is the author of four books on syntactic theory and the history of linguistics. He has recently completed a 5-year term as Secretary-Treasurer of the Linguistic Society of America and is currently Associate Editor of the journal Natural Language and Linguistic Theory. He has taught at the University of Washington, Seattle, since 1969.

Bibliographic information