United States linguist whose theory of generative grammar redefined the field of linguistics (born 1928)

Noam Chomsky (1928- ), renowned American intellectual, MIT professor and linguist, who proposed theories of organization and representation of language. He revolutionized the study of languages with his theory of generative grammars. See his official home page

Noam Chomsky is an MIT Professor of Linguistics and is considered to be the father of modern day linguistics world wide. His work is based on Cartesian Rationalism and so attributes much of language acquisition to innate language specific principles of thought (viz. a Language faculty or Language Acquisition Device (LAD)). His most recent interpretations of this LAD have spawn the last two models of his Theory-- Principles & Parameters Framework and the Minimalist Program.