PIECES OF MINDS IN PSYCHOLINGUISTICS - PINKER,STEVEN, WEXLER,KENNETH,AND CHOMSKY,NOAM - A SERIES OF INTERVIEWS CONDUCTED BY RONDAL,JEAN.A.

This is the second in a series of three interviews featuring Steven Pi nker, Kenneth Wexler, and Noam Chomsky, three giant figures in the fie ld of linguistics, psycholinguistics, and cognitive science. This seco nd interview is with Professor Noam Chomsky. The first interview, with Professor Steven Pinker, appeared in a preceding issue of this journa l (Vol. 28, Issue 4, pp. 459-480). The last one, featuring Professor W exler, will appear in the next issue. Noam Chomsky is, without a doubt , the greatest linguist ever. His numerous contributions since the ear ly 1950s have revolutionised theoretical linguistics almost completely . They have literally transformed the study, and in many respects even the very notion, of language. In the present interview, Dr. Chomsky s peaks of his theories and of some alternative or varying points of vie w. He specifies his most current conception of language and grammar. P articularly interesting from a historical perspective, Noam Chomsky al so speaks of the relationships between transformational grammar and ex perimental psychology in the 1960s, of his years training with Zeilig Harris in Philadelphia, of the self-developed ideas that led him to co nceive of generative grammar, and of his opposition to Skinner and Ski nnerism as well as to Piaget and Piagetianism in the preceding decades . The interview took place at MIT in May of 1988. It was edited and re vised in December, 1992 and in March, 1993. 1 am very grateful to Noam Chomsky for his time, availability, and most friendly collaboration. One will find, together with the transcript of the interview, a brief sketch of Professor Chomsky's professional vitae, as well as a selecte d bibliography.