Language and Thought

As a linguist, Noam Chomsky aims not only at making a technical contribution with his generative theory of language but also at integrating his linguistic theory into a wider view of the relationship between between language and the human mind. The crux of this view is the hypothesis that human beings are born with an innate knowledge of universal principles underlying the structure of human language. Chomsky’s ideas have exerted a powerful influence on the other disciplines by restoring language to a central position in cognitive psychology and in the philosophy of the mind. The wider impact on his redefinition of the subject gives him a permanent place in the intellectual history of the twentieth century.