Chomsky Noam. On Nature and Language

Cambridge University Press, 2002. — xi + 206 p.The first chapter provides an introduction to some basic concepts of linguistic theory and to some elements of the history of the field which are crucial for understanding certain theoretical questions addressed in the following chapters.The second chapter is related to a particular occasion. Chomsky’s sojourn in Siena was organized twenty years after his visit to the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa, an event which, through
the memorable Pisa Lectures, has profoundly influenced the field of theoretical linguistics ever since. In connection with this anniversary, Chomsky received, on October 27, 1999, the Perfezionamento honoris causa, the honorary degree delivered by the Scuola Normale Superiore.
In that occasion, he gave the Galileo Lecture Perspectives on Language and Mind, which traces central ideas of current scientific linguistics and of the modern cognitive sciences to their roots in classical thought, starting with Galileo Galilei’s famous praise of the marvelous invention, alphabetic writing, which allows us to communicate with other people, no matter how distant in space and time.
The Galileo Lecture is published here as the second chapter.The third chapter is focused on the relations of the study of language with the brains sciences; it addresses in particular the perspectives for an integration and unification of the abstract computational models, developed by the cognitive sciences, with the study of the physical substrate of language and cognition in the brain. A preliminary version of this text was read by Chomsky as a plenary lecture at the meeting of the European Conference on Cognitive Science (Santa Maria della Scala, Siena, October 30, 1999); the same issues were also addressed in a somewhat more general setting in the public lecture Language and the Rest of the World (University of Siena, November 16, 1999).The fourth chapter presents, in the form of an interview, a discussion on the historical roots, concepts, and ramifications of the Minimalist Program, the approach to language which took shape under the impulse of Chomsky’s ideas in the course of the 1990s, and
which has progressively acquired a prominent place in theoretical linguistics.