1	Noam Chomsky February 5, 2002
2	Umberto Eco—The Name of the Rose We see things in terms that we already know. We discover what we expect to find. We need to be willing to discard wrong propositions, but we need to have distinct notions to begin with.
3	Neisser “Linguistic arguments have shown that an activity could be rule-governed and yet infinitely free and creative” (p. 75, The Linguistics Wars).
4	Chomsky on Generativism “By a generative grammar I mean simply a system of rules that in some explicit and well-defined way assigns structural descriptions to sentences. . . . Perhaps the issue can be clarified by an analogy to a part of chemical theory concerned with the structurally possible compounds. This theory might be said to generate all physically possible compounds just as a grammar generates all grammatically ‘possible’ utterances” (Noam Chomsky, LW 39).
5	Aspects (1965) Introduction to ‘deep structure’ (vs. 1957: ‘the kernel sentence’) Basic sentences in which transformations are imposed to get other sentences.
6	Kernel Sentences 1 per verb Relative & Coordinate Clause – more than one verb means more than one kernel sentence.
7	Question Why was Chomsky popular with English literature people? “He starts with the sentence … he promises to help crack meaning; and he embraces the traditional grammars on the English professors’ shelves” (LW 75).
8	Katz/Postal Hypothesis (p. 82) Transformations have no semantic impact. Deep structure is simpler & more regular – it’s easier to get at.
9	What kind of meaning? Potential Meaning vs. A Particular Meaning in Context Semantics – gives all possible meanings Pragmatics – chooses the appropriate reading
10	Ambiguity
11	Paraphrase
12	Cormorant Island “Everyone on Cormorant Island speaks two languages.” “Two languages are spoken by everyone on Cormorant Island.” Competence vs. Performance Selectional Restrictions
13	Syntactic Structures (1957)
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15	Syntax vs. Semantics What should the semantic component do? Selectional Restrictions: How to Cheat Badly
16	Word Senses Features (are they universal primitives?) – Schank conceptual dependency Metaphor Fixed Set?
17	Chomsky’s Folly It would destroy the idea of autonomous syntax – there is no possible way syntax is autonomous from semantics. With more than one sense, it would include semantics. Is there one set of universals? Metaphors: dynamic metaphors are problems. Fixed Set: are there ways to add meanings?
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