Syntactic Structures by Noam Chomsky, First Edition (10 results)

Soft cover. Condition: Good. 1st Edition. Mouton & Co The Hague 1957 First Edition 116pp G (card covers w title on front cover, considerably worn, marks and writing on front and rear cover, stains 7/or discolouration, book has been written in throughout, bump on head of spine, binding sound).

Soft cover. Condition: Near Fine. 1st Edition. Original blue wrappers. First Edition. Perhaps the most influential text in modern linguistics. Slight bump on the spine, Near Fine.

Paperback octavo, 118 pages. Condition: Good. Sixth printing, 1968. Soiling and staining to cardstock cover. Penciling and stains on some pages. Rare early printing of Chomsky's first book on linguistics.

Softcover. First Edition; Ninth Printing. Near Fine in wraps.

Wraps. First edition, first printing. This is the first edition of the first book by the "Father of modern linguistics". Syntactic Structures, arguably one of the most important books in the history of linguistics, "was the snowball which began the avalanche of the modern 'cognitive revolution.'" Condition is very good. The original textured blue card wraps binding remains square, tight, and complete with an uncreased spine. The spine and perimeter of the covers show toning, though wear is minimal and confined to extremities. The contents likewise show toning to the page edges, but are otherwise clean, with no spotting or soiling. The sole previous ownership mark is contemporary, an inked name and date of "April 1958" on the upper right half-title recto. The name may be that of Frederic Schick, for more than fifty years a professor of philosophy at Rutgers University, a single testimony to the incredible academic ripple effect of Chomsky's work.Theoretical linguist. Cognitive scientist. Philosopher. Historian. Logician. Social critic. Political activist. A seemingly inexhaustible list of professional descriptors append to Noam Chomsky (b.1928), indicating the incredible longevity of his life, the scope of his influence, and the breadth of his intellectual inquiries and passions. He became and remained one of the world's leading public intellectuals. In the nearly three-quarters of a century since Syntactic Structures was published, Chomsky has received a dizzying myriad of honors and awards, sufficiently numerous and diverse to prohibit comprehensive enumeration; among them are the Kyoto Prize in Basic Sciences, the Helmholtz Medal, and the Ben Franklin Medal in Computer and Cognitive Science. Chomsky ranks among the most cited living authors and has authored well over one hundred books.Published in 1957, Syntactic Structures was his first. Chomsky had just earned his doctorate and begun teaching at MIT. In Syntactic Structures, Chomsky contested behaviorist ideas about the origin of language, notably those of Skinner, and "argued that humans are born with the innate ability to realize the generative grammars that constitute every human language," using this ability to learn the languages to which they are exposed. One immediate effect of the book was to impress MIT, which asked Chomsky and a colleague to establish a new graduate program in linguistics, and which made Chomsky a full professor in 1961. A more lasting effect was to usher in an intellectual and sociological revolution in the field of linguistics.David W. Lightfoot is one of a legion of subsequent linguists who "has elaborated and championed the theory, first posited by Noam Chomsky, that each human has a genetically innate but culturally unique "language organ" a system of grammatical and knowledge patterns in the brain whose functions can be studied through "cognitive physiology" and whose structure can be modified by "cues" from the social environment." (National Science Foundation) In his 2002 Introduction to a second edition of Chomsky's Syntactic Structures, Lightfoot credited Chomsky with the "snowball" that gave rise to the "avalanche" that "has also given rise to new kinds of studies of language acquisition by young children, new experimental techniques, explorations of language use in various domains, new computer models, new approaches to language, all shaped by the core notion of a language organ." Lightfoot also credited Chomsky's work for spawning "new approaches to old philosophical questions, notions of meanings and reference." Writing nearly half a century after Chomsky's Syntactic Structures was first published, Lightfoot said of the work that "the cognitive analysis of language was re-energized by this remarkable snowball and it will continue for much longer, because much remains to be done now that the perspective has been widened.".

Chomsky, Noam (1928- ). Syntactic structures. 116pp. 'S-Gravenhague: Mouton & Co., 1957. 227 x 150 mm. Original printed wrappers, spine darkened, slight edgewear and finger-soiling. Very good. Ownership stamp of Dr. Knut Bergslane, professor at the University of Oslo, on front wrapper. Signed by Chomsky on the half-title. First Edition of Chomsky's classic text on the underlying structures of natural language. Expanding on ideas first presented in his paper, "Three models for the description of language" (1956), Chomsky's work develops two key concepts: "Chomsky's hierarchy" of syntactic forms, which has been widely applied in the construction of artificial computer languages; andmost importantlyhis concept of transformational grammar. The cognitive scientist David Marr, who developed a general account of information-processing systems, described Chomsky's theory of transformation grammar as a top-level computational theory, in the sense that it deals with the goal of a computation, why it is appropriate, and the logic of the strategy used to carry it out (Anderson and Rosenfeld, Neurocomputing: Foundations of Research, pp. 47072). Chomsky's work has had profound influence in the fields of linguistics, philosophy, psychology, and artificial intelligence. Origins of Cyberspace 532. .

Condition: Very good. First edition. Signed first edition of Chomsky's first book, a landmark of linguistics and cognitive science, containing the first appearance of his famous sentence "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously." Chomsky's SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES is no less than a "Copernican revolution" (Voegelin, 229) in the field of linguistics and cognitive science. In it, he puts forth his theory of transformational generative grammar, disproving B. F. Skinner's "beads on a string" theory of sentence construction, and in the process giving us one of the most iconic sentences in the English language: "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously." The work of Zellig Harris, Chomsky's teacher and mentor, formed the foundation of many of the points Chomsky makes in SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES, which he has further clarified and refined over the course of his long career. This copy, signed by Chomsky, represents in physical form a seismic shift in our understanding of language. 9'' x 5.75''. Original grey-blue wrappers. 116 pages, including bibliography. Signed by Chomsky to title page. In custom black clamshell box with black goatskin spine. Wrapper with mild toning to edges, a bit of rubbing to spine. Binding a little tender, but sound.

Printed Wrapper. Condition: Very Good-. Eighth Printing. Flatsigned by Chomsky on the half-title page. Internally all pages clean, with a touch of age darkening. Medium to heavy shelf wear to wrapper- a scratch on the front panel, a half inch tear at bottom of spine along rear hinge, mild soiling, and curling to bottom front corner including the corners the first 30 pages. Top edge has inch long shallow dent affecting three leaves. Syntactic Structures has influenced fields outside linguistics. It had a big impact on the study of knowledge, mind and mental processes. It also had a smaller effect on the research on computers and the brain. going into the 21st century, linguists and non-linguists alike praised the book. They recognized it as one of the most important studies of the 20th century. Signed by Author(s).

First edition of Chomsky's landmark first book. Octavo, original wrappers. Lengthily signed by the author on the title page with the added words, "Syntax is the study of the principle and processes by which sentences are constructed in particular languages Noam Chomsky." Near fine in wrappers. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box. A seminal book in the field of linguistics, Syntactic Structures laid the foundation for Chomsky's idea of transformational grammar. Listed by Time Magazine as one of best 100 non-fiction books written in English since 1923.

Condition: Very Good. First Edition. [1961]. No additional printings listed, but recto of rear cover shows a list of publisher's titles dating up until 1961, suggesting either unbound sheets of the first printing were bound into later issue/variant wraps, or possibly this is a later printing. Original pale blue wraps printed in dark blue. Very Good with toning to wraps at spine and edges, light soiling, light wear at joints. Corners bumped. Previous owner name to first page, and ink notations to text to a handful of pages. An attractive copy of Chomsky's first published book, which changed the field of linguistics immensely. It's best known for the meaningless and yet grammatically coherent sentence "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.".