Rules and Representations

As Norbert Hornstein writes in his foreword, "it underestimates Chomsky's impact in linguistics, philosophy, and psychology to describe it as immense." In Rules and Representations, Noam Chomsky lays out many of the concepts that have made his approach to linguistics and human cognition so instrumental to our understanding of language.

In this influential and controversial work Chomsky draws on philosophy, biology, and the study of the mind to consider the nature of human cognitive capacities, particularly as they are expressed in language. He arrives at his well-known position that there is a universal grammar, genetically determined, structured in the human mind, and common to all human languages. Aside from his examination of the various principles of the universal grammar -- its "rules and representations" -- Chomsky considers the biological basis of language capabilities and the possibility of studying mental structures and capacities in the manner of the natural sciences. Finally, he also explores whether there may be similar "grammars" of perception, art, human nature, scientific reasoning, and the unconscious.

Based on Chomsky's lively 1978 Woodbridge Lectures, this edition, first published in 1980, contains revised versions of the original lectures and two new essays. It also includes an extensive foreword by Norbert Hornstein, discussing Chomsky's ideas and their wide-ranging impact.

Columbia University Press

Believing that the human language faculty can be understood as a "mental organ" whose development is shaped by experience, Chomsky argues for a science of mind that follows the procedures of modern science.

In Rules and Representations, first published in 1980, Noam Chomsky lays out many of the concepts that have made his approach to linguistics and human cognition so instrumental to our understanding of language.

Chomsky arrives at his well-known position that there is a universal grammar, structured in the human mind and common to all human languages. Based on Chomsky's 1978 Woodbridge Lectures, this edition contains revised versions of the lectures and two new essays.

Ian Hacking

From time to time, ever since Plato, grammar has been more than the bane of school children or a topic for scholars. It owes its present prominence outside linguistics to some theses stated twenty-five years ago by Noam Chomsky. The proposals have since evolved, and Rules and Representations is a useful book with which to catch up on the state of the art . . . . It is like watching the grand master play, blindfolded, thirty-six simultaneous chess matches against the local worthies. . . . Chomsky must be one of the most reasoning of living men.

Noam Chomsky is an Institute Professor and professor of linguistics at MIT. He is the author of many books on linguistics, philosophy, intellectual history, and politics.

Norbert Hornstein is professor of linguistics at the University of Maryland. He is the author of several books and the coeditor (with Louise M. Antony) of Chomsky and His Critics.