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Generative Linguistics

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, linguists were concerned primarily with codifying languages as they were spoken and/or written--they limited themselves to what we today call "descriptive" linguistics, or the study of words and sentences that have been produced by native speakers of a given language. Since the 1950s, however, beginning with MIT scholar Noam Chomsky, linguists have largely focussed their attention on trying to discover the range of words and sentences that could be produced by native speakers. This latter approach is referred to as "generative" linguistics; its goal is to account for words and sentences which do exist and, in addition, for all words and sentences which do not, but are grammatically possible. This paper will further explore and explain the differences between these two approaches to the study of language.

The potency of generative linguistics hinges on one seemingly minor point in the above paragraph, namely that it also aims to account for words and phrases which do not currently exist but are grammatically possible. Generative linguists acknowledge that language is limitless in terms of native-speaker creativity--new words are coined daily in every language, whether as slang terms or brand names, and close to 100 percent of the sentences a native speaker uses in his or her lifetime are completely original. These facts make two things clear: 1) people do not merely memorize language, or such creativity would be impossible; "language," therefore, must be the result of a set of principles, or rules, which, when applied, produce acceptable words and phrases; and 2) there are many, perhaps infinitely many, possible words and sentences in any given language.

But there are limitations on native-speaker creativity; not everything is possible. The word ploix does not exist in English, but any English-speaker would consider it perfectly acceptable; pmoix, however, does not and cannot exis...

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Generative Linguistics. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 02:35, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1708110.html