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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.".
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