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From: librik@netcom.com (David Librik)
Subject: Re: Introductions to Chomsky?
Message-ID: <librikCzEK5G.HBB@netcom.com>
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
References: <3a0r95$s69@agate.berkeley.edu>
Date: Thu, 17 Nov 1994 08:12:52 GMT
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Patrick Hall <pathall@uclink.berkeley.edu> writes:

>Hi.
>As an undergraduate in Linguistics, I have read so many references to Noam Chomsky that I feel like I have read everything he's ever written. Which, of course, is in no way true. Anyway, what I'm asking is for suggestions as to where, exactly, I should start plowing. SPE? Syntactic Structures? Are there some good essays to start with? 
>I'm just tired of reading about his work without reading the real thing... Thanks for any advice...

Well, SPE has been reprinted in paperback; the ASUC bookstore has it.  It
makes for interesting reading, because the formal system used is now so
standard in Linguistics classes that it's not too difficult to read.  (But
Chomsky and Halle go a lot farther with "clever things you can you do with
the notation" than anybody would accept today.)  

I have read some of the older stuff -- the Ling. Dept. library has _Logical
Structure of Linguistic Theory_, which is where he first worked
out the idea of transformational generative grammar, but if you're going
to go with the ancient revolutionary stuff, you might want to start
by reading Randy Allan Harris's _The Linguistics Wars_.  (You'll never
think of Prof. Lakoff (either one) quite the same way again.)  There is a
shorter version of _Logical Structure_ called _Syntactic Structures_.

What I would really like to know is something related, which maybe someone
on sci.lang can help me with: are there any good, introductory, easily-
accessible-to-the-linguistic-novice books about GB?  (Yes, I have seen
the standard textbook.  It's probably fine as an adjunct to a class.
"Accessible" it's not.) While I'm sure that Construction Grammar is far
superior (a big HI :-) here to Profs. Fillmore and Kay), I think that if
the rest of the world is doing GB it would be nice to at least be able to
follow the arguments.

- David Librik
librik@cs.Berkeley.edu
who thinks the history of Linguistics makes for darned fun reading
