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This volume is devoted to a major chapter in the history of linguistics in the United States, the period from the 1930s to the 1980s. It offers detailed discussions of the key issues and developments in the transition from (post-Bloomfieldian) structural linguistics to early generative grammar.
List of contents
- 1: The structuralist ascendancy in American linguistics
- 2: American structuralism and European structuralism: How they saw each other
- 3: Martin Joos's Readings in Linguistics as the apogee of American structuralism
- 4: Early transformational generative grammar: Some controversial issues
- 5: The diffusion of generativist ideas
- 6: The European reception of early transformational generative grammar
- 7: The contested LSA presidential election of 1970
- 8: Charles Hockett's attempt to resign from the LSA in 1982
- 9: The generativist non-dominance of the field in the 1970s and 1980s
- Appendices
About the author
Frederick J. Newmeyer is Professor Emeritus at the University of Washington and Adjunct Professor at the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University. He specializes in syntactic theory and the history of linguistics, and is interested in particular in whether the work of functional linguists is compatible with, challenges, or refutes mainstream thinking in generative grammar. He has been President of the Linguistic Society of America and an editor of Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, and his many publications include the OUP volumes Possible and Probable Languages: A Generative Perspective on Linguistic Typology (2005) and Measuring Grammatical Complexity (co-edited with Laurel B. Preston; 2014; paperback 2017).
Summary
This volume is devoted to a major chapter in the history of linguistics in the United States, the period from the 1930s to the 1980s. It offers detailed discussions of the key issues and developments in the transition from (post-Bloomfieldian) structural linguistics to early generative grammar.
Additional text
In his book, F.J. Newmeyer re-evaluates Chomskyan linguistics, a domain in wich he once took an active part (as a visiting student at MIT in 1968-1969 and as elected secretary-treasurer of the LSA in 1989): here he returns to his chosen field and provides some innovative food for thought.
