Talk:Syntactic Structures

Untitled

In its present state this article is laughably inadequate.

I know it is de rigueur, in generative grammar, to describe the works of Chomsky with exaltation. But these descriptions rarely stop there. This article does. In an encyclopedia, it seems more appropriate to focus on technical and practical contributions instead.

E.g. Knuth read Syntactic structures not as a guilty pleasure, as the present wording suggests; he read it because it is the foundation for some of his contributions to computer science (attribute grammars, LR parsing). Rp (talk) 08:08, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

To clarify: my problem is not with the article's content, but the tone of writing. The publishing of Syntactic Structures is believed by many academics to be a watershed moment in the annals of modern linguistics. In a favorable and highly influential review of the book, (...). An encyclopedia is a reference work, not a reverence work. Rp (talk) 18:25, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately this isn't very helpful. There are many references to support the text you quoted and called reverential in tone. The truth, for me at least, is that this tone cannot be helped. It is inevitable. Chomsky was, as a matter of fact, revered to some extent by generations of linguists from the 60s, 70s, 80s, and even now he is, although many of his earlier contributions have been abandoned later by himself and by other linguists. Chomsky really did change the landscape of linguistics with Syntactic Structures. Lees really did write almost a book-length review, a favorable review (i.e. not a critical one) in the journal Language that highly influenced the mindset of linguists back then and attracted them to the Chomskyian brand of linguistics. So Lees's review was really "favorable and highly influential". Historians of linguistics who lived through those times all say the same thing. Remember 1950s and 1960s was the time when new Linguistics departments and programs were being founded in American universities. Chomsky became kind of a superstar in this academic milieu during the latter half of the 20th century, and any unbiased, truthful account of Chomsky's work will inevitably reflect these facts, in content and in tone. --Zaheen (talk) 06:47, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

If the tone wasn't inevitable, we wouldn't be dealing with objectively describable material, and hence its discussion wouldn't belong in Wikipedia at all. But of course there is a difference between reverential writing (which this article is guilty of at present) and a description of reverence by others. The latter can be discussed objectively - although I think such discussion should remain limited to a hypothetical article The sociology of linguistics. . Rp (talk) 16:57, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Early history of U.S. linguistics departments

(Dialect note: Americans use the term "department" where British English uses "faculty".) It is not correct that the first department of linguistics at an American university was at the University of Pennsylvania in 1947. The first was about ten years earlier at the University of Chicago, headed by Edward Sapir. However--and I have been unable to find an account of the subsequent events--the department was shut down during World War II and it was not reestablished until after the University of Pennsylvania's had acted.Dale Chock (talk) 19:54, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Syntactic Structures/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

This article gives no real clue what 'Syntactic Structures' was about - Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark. For a recent review see: Cook, V.J. (2007), ‘Classic Review: Chomsky’s Syntactic Structures 50 years on’ International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 17, 120-127 128.240.229.65 17:26, 3 August 2007 (UTC)Vivian Cook I think the article at its present state gives the reader a pretty good idea of what this book was about. --Zaheen (talk) 00:06, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Last edited at 00:06, 25 December 2009 (UTC). Substituted at 07:29, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

Readability statistics for reference

17 Nov 2016

• Number of paragraphs = 37
• Number of syllables = 7400 (approx)
• Number of words = 4045
• Number of sentences = 154
• Average Syllable per Word (ASW) = 1.9
• Average paragraph length = about 110 words = 4.2 sentences
• Average sentence length (ASL) = 26.2 words

Thus, the Flesch reading ease score is : 206.835 – (1.015 x ASL) – (84.6 x ASW) = 206.835- 26.593 - 160.74 = 19.5

Which means college graduate level.

Zaheen (talk) 13:53, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

18 Nov

• No. of sentences = 178
• No. of words = 4092
• Average words per sentence = 22.99
• Average syllables per word (ASW) = 1.80
• Flesch reading ease score = 31.3

• No. of complex words = 875
• Percent of complex words = 21.38%

Zaheen (talk) 16:56, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

19 Nov

• Flesch reading ease score now at 35.5.
• Grade level = 14 = College Sophomore
• No. of sentences 193
• No. of words 3837
• No. of complex words 811
• Percent of complex words 21.14%
• Average words per sentence 19.88
• Average syllables per word 1.79

Zaheen (talk) 04:19, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

20 Nov 2016

• The readability of the lead according to the Flesch reading ease score : 46.4
• Corresponding grade level = 10th grade
• 41% of the articles on Wikipedia are harder to read than this lead.
• Also, avg word per sentence = 15 --> 7th/8th grade level.

Zaheen (talk) 17:21, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

21 Nov 2016

For the entire article :

• Flesch reading ease score = 37.1
• Article harder than 77% of all wikipedia articles

Zaheen (talk) 21:08, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

• The article lead's Flesch reading score is now at 49.1 => it is easier to read than half (48%) the articles on wikipedia. Zaheen (talk) 21:48, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

22 Nov 2016

• Lead readability now : 50.3 => easier to read than 51% of wikipedia articles. Zaheen (talk) 18:15, 21 November 2016 (UTC)
• Lead readability now : 54.2 => easier to read than 62% of wikipedia articles. (9+ grade level) Zaheen (talk) 21:59, 21 November 2016 (UTC)
• Lead readability now : 56.1 => easier to read than 67% of wikipedia articles. (8+ grade level) Zaheen (talk) 22:30, 21 November 2016 (UTC)
• Lead readability now : 60 => easier to read than 77% of wikipedia articles (and 47% simple wikipedia articles). (8th grade level) Zaheen (talk) 17:17, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

• Entire article readability : 41 ==> easier to read than 30% wikipedia articles. (12th grade) Zaheen (talk) 18:10, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

5 Dec 2016

• Lead readability now : 66.2 ==> easier to read than 88% wikipedia articles. (7th grade)

15 June 2018

(for the introductory section only, as edited by Zaheen) Flesch Reading Ease 60.8. Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level 7.7.

20 Aug 2018

(for the introductory section only as edited by Marchino61) Flesch Reading Ease 51.0. Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level 10.7.

Marchino61 (talk) 07:58, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Review

I was asked to provide some feedback on the content and style of this article. I'll refer to the criteria for B-Class articles.

1. The article is suitably referenced, with inline citations.

References and inline citations are certainly sufficient. One criticism I have, however, is that the footnotes combine substantive commentary (e.g. note 1 or note 10 are virtually paragraphs) with straight references. This is certainly not disqualifying and seems to be the practice on some good articles.

2. The article reasonably covers the topic, and does not contain obvious omissions or inaccuracies.

There is a good deal of coverage, but it is uneven. The section "Background" seems to cover much more of Noam Chomsky's early career and life than is necessary to understand this book. In contrast, "Publication" seems a bit anemic in comparison. "Contents" is, on the whole, appropriate, while "Rhetorical style" and "Criticisms" both left me scratching my head. Why are these relative handful of reactions cited (especially the two commentators in "Rhetorical style") over others? I'm not sure that the solution is to add more commentators, however. I would rather see general discussion of the the praise and critiques the book has generated.

3. The article has a defined structure.

As mentioned above, the footnotes and the balance of the sections seem a bit off. That said, the general scheme under which the article is organized seems appropriate.

4. The article is reasonably well-written.

Reasonably well written, yes, but at times a bit fulsome. Sentences such as, "At the time, young Chomsky was a relatively unknown scholar," and, "It was written by none other than his father, William Chomsky, one of the foremost Hebrew scholars at the time," strike me as overly personal.

5. The article contains supporting materials where appropriate.

The infobox and cover illustration are appropriate.

6. The article presents its content in an appropriately understandable way.

In general the book and the linguistic theories it presents are adequately introduced. There are several items mentioned without explanation, however. These include:

• "neo-Bloomfieldian linguist" (also post-Bloomfieldian)
• "inadequacy of inductive approaches"
• "Quine's critiques of logical empiricism"
• "Yngve's mechanical translation project"
• "a formal, derivational rule applied to underlying structures"

I would also recommend that the abbreviation LSLT be spelled out at least once in each section, rather than only once in the text plus in the infobox and references.

Overall, the article is in relatively good shape. With more balance and just a bit more explanation it may well qualify for good article status. My compliments to the contributors. Cnilep (talk) 02:14, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

Followup to review

References

I have now separated the footnotes from the straightforward references. Zaheen (talk) 11:41, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

LSLT

LSLT is now spelled out at least once in each new section it's mentioned. Zaheen (talk) 11:51, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

"fulsome" sentences

I have reformulated the sentences in question to make them sound less personal. Please let me know if there are more of this kind. Zaheen (talk) 18:14, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

balance among sections

The "Background" section has been rewritten, its language simplified. Details have either been scrapped or relegated to footnotes. The "Publication" section has been greatly expanded. It now gives a detailed context surrounding the book's publication. Zaheen (talk) 17:17, 26 November 2016 (UTC)

understandability/ readability

I have been working on this section by section for quite a while now. The first three sections (lead, background, publication) now have a readability score of 56. Zaheen (talk) 17:23, 26 November 2016 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Syntactic Structures/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Sagecandor (talk · contribs) 23:43, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

I'll do this one. Sagecandor (talk) 23:43, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Successful good article nomination

I am glad to report that this article nomination for good article status has been promoted. This is how the article, as of December 21, 2016, compares against the six good article criteria:

1. Well written?: I read sections on the talk page, "Assessment comment", "Readability statistics for reference", and "Review". As well as "Followup to review". The article has only improved since then. The intro is of appropriate length and good writing style. The background section is excellent context. Overall readability level is good. So glad to see editors assessing articles they've worked on with a mind for readability, what a nice thing to see.

2. Verifiable?: Minor quibbles here. I moved some uncited stuff to the talk page. Only was a sentence or two, probably easily addressed. Some of the footnotes don't have citations at the ends of them to back this up. This is okay for now for good article, but strongly recommend you get on that to improve verifiablity even more. Why I am saying it is okay is because in the few cases it looks like only used in the form of "see also" for helpful other wikipedia articles. But still need cites at the ends of those to improve them for people that want to check and verify that info later.

3. Broad in coverage?: Boy is the article thorough ! I see that research gone into it includes at least 75 citations and 42 footnotes. I think the size of the Background section is appropriate here. I really really like the "Impact on other disciplines" in the "Reception" section.

4. Neutral point of view?: Article presents the contextual importance of the work, grounding this in background to introduce it to the reader. It is an important and scholarly academic work, and therefore stating this as so is not a neutrality problem. The article is indeed NPOV in this manner.

5. Stable? Talk page shows some really good and unique collaboration regarding article readability and improving that for the reader, which is great to see. Really an interesting discussion to have, that should be had on all article talk pages during the improvement process. Recent article edit history for the past couple of months only shows good improvements by the GA nominator. Not seeing any stability problems or edit conflicts or talk page conflicts.

6. Images?: Three images are used in the article. 2 are hosted on Wikimedia Commons and are okay there. One is asserted as fair use and has good fair use rationale on its image page. If anything, the article could do with a free-use image of the author, if possible.

Simply excellent, amazing research and writing work overall. If you feel that this review is in error, feel free to have it Good article reassessed. Thank you to all of the editors who worked hard to bring it to this status, and congratulations.— Sagecandor (talk) 17:43, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Uncited from Publication section

Syntactic Structures was the fourth book in the Janua Linguarum series. It was the series's bestselling book. It was reprinted 13 times until 1978. In 1969, a French translation by Michel Braudeau was published by Éditions du Seuil. In 1973, Mouton published a German translation by Klaus-Peter Lange.

---

Uncited material from publication section. Can move it back when cited. Sagecandor (talk) 17:39, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Note that I have moved back the part along with inline citations and full references. Zaheen (talk) 05:04, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

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Readability (from a non-statistical point of view)

I have edited the first section of the article for style. The sentences were so short as to be staccato and distracting, and stopped the language flowing. There were almost no conjunctions used. It is of course important that the article should be easy to read, but I think we need to pitch it at the level of a reasonably competent older child or adult. The previous version appeared to be written with grammar at a primary school level.

I would be interested to hear from other contributors what they think on this topic.

Marchino61 (talk) 07:38, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

@Marchino61:Hello, I really appreciate your concern regarding this. You are right to observe that the sentences structures seem very simple and short. But there is a deliberate reason behind that. The sentences are written like that in order to increase readability, even for a 7th grader, which is where the lead section's readability stands now. The goal was to avoid long, complex sentences as much as possible and chop them up into elementary sentences. That means very few conjunctions, or relative pronouns, or juxtaposed adjective phrases, etc. had to be used. Needless to say that I think this is a good thing. Also, it is hard to define "reasonably competent older child or adult" is. It seems quite subjective. The readability scores are more reliable in this sense. Remember that this article has been reviewed by someone who has a Ph. D. in linguistics and another reviewer who elevated it to Good Article status. They did not raise the issue that you have raised. In fact, one of the article reviewers appreciated the approach to readability. In fact, readability was counted as one of the factors for it being chosen as a good article.

Again, I have nothing against you editing the article. I do not want this to be an edit war or anything ugly. I understand the point you are making. But I hope that you will make an effort to understand mine as well. In particular, I am for as much readability as possible, and if it means a 7th grader level readability, all the better. Syntactic Structures is a complex book that treats complex issues and my goal was to write about it (especially the lead secion) in a very, very simple way so that even a middle-school going child would understand the gist of it by reading the lead. --Zaheen (talk) 16:33, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Also, I have reverted your edits for the time being as I do not agree with them. This is not to undermine your editing and I am not implying that they are outright wrong. I hope that you would see my viewpoint described above and agree that those edits are not needed. Please do not revert back to your version until this discussion is settled. --Zaheen (talk) 16:38, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Pinging @Sagecandor and Cnilep: for comments --Zaheen (talk) 16:38, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

I see what you are saying, but I would make just one point. The subject matter of this article is quite complex. I'd say that no matter how readable you make the article, it would probably still not be understood by an average 7th grader (assuming that is the aim). The content is simply too complex.

Marchino61 (talk) 23:46, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

I agree with Marchino61 that the introduction to an article must aim to be readable to a general audience, including those who find the full content too complex. Ideally, the introduction leaves any reader with a rough idea of what the rest of the article is about - it puts the content in context. That being said, I think omitting conjunctions is taking things too far. The text as it reads now, particularly the second paragraph, is so simple as to seem condescending. I'm not stupid. I can read full sentences. Thank you very much. I'm less annoyed by oversimplified language today than I was as a seventh-grader, but I feel we must assume our reader can read arbitrary everyday English sentences. If you want to write for people who can't, why not do it on the Simple English Wikipedia (see e.g. Syntax)? That's what it's for. Rp (talk) 18:47, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

@Rp: Marchino61 and I both agree that lead sections should be very readable. You do to. Our disagreement is about the extent to which the language should be simplified. I personally tried to go all the way and tried to make it readable to even a seventh-grader (at least according to the readability formula used). To you (and I believe to Marchin as well), it may seem too simple to the average reader, and in some way "condescending". That's a legitimate criticism. I personally have no big problem using 10th grade language in the lead section, which is what Marchin tried doing. But as I said above, I also think that making the lead accessible even to 7th graders is a great idea. So I am kind of torn in that sense.

And the Syntax article in the Simple English wiki is not the same as this article. And not everybody goes to the Simple English wiki. I think it is fair to assume that the majority of the internet users would come over here at the main English wiki after doing some kind of Google search on Syntactic Structures or by following a wikilink from another article on the main English Wiki. So if we are trying to connect to the masses, the simplifying modifications should be attempted here first.

What I fear is this little anti-simplification backlash (probably legit) might swing the pendulum the other way and lead to unnecessarily long, complex sentence structures in other sections as well, which are still quite dense (even after my many, many attempts of breaking them down into easily digestible chunks). On the whole, I think we should err on the side of simplification and superior readability, not the other way around. Of course, if it gets "too simple", we could tweak here and there. --Zaheen (talk) 07:53, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

A major revision on its way

Hi guys, so you won't be thunderstruck: I know it is rated as a 'good' article, but I'm writing a revision of the introduction and making a comparison with Hjelmslev's Prolegomena to a Theory of Language. I think it has been an extremely well kept secret that the computational model Chomsky presents is not his at all, but belongs to Hjelmslev whose theory is a staple of functional--structural linguistics as well as semiotics. It's a little conspicuous that while Syntactic Structures cites few other people than Hjelmslev, and Seuren in his History of Western Linguistics takes up points between the works that are identical, the Wikipedia article fails to make any reference to the original. It kinda looks like a cover-up. Anyhow, improvements will be necessary because people need to know the truth. Weidorje (talk) 22:16, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

@Weidorje: Hello Weidorje, what you have added regarding Hjelmslev's work looks very interesting and it is very bold of you to make these changes. To be clear, I do not doubt your good faith in this regard, but in its current formulation it appears to me to be mostly your original research. In my humble opinion, your edits as they stand now have an effect of exaggerating or giving undue importance to a certain point of view (Seuren's? Yours? Not very clear) that, if verifiable and found to supported by primary and secondary sources, could eventually belong to a subsection in the Criticism section, but it should not be given such prominence in the lead section nor does it merit a standalone section right after the lead section. This is not how good articles on books are structured. I have temporarily removed your edits. But I am in no way suggesting that they do not belong at all in this article. But I feel like we need to discuss the merit of your added content before we can reinsert them. I hope to have a respectful discussion with you on this. --Zaheen (talk) 10:38, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Pinging @Cnilep: for comments. --Zaheen (talk) 10:38, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Nonsense. The sources are clear: while Chomsky never claimed to have invented the theory, it is clearly visible in Hjelmslev's original, as is well explained by Seuren. I've added two further quotes to Talk:Language#Edits_undone_March_2020. Are Cnilep and Zaheen together in this? Where did you get your idea from? Wikipedia needs to be accurate, and you cannot use it to spread your own agenda.Weidorje (talk) 10:59, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Dear @Weidorje:, it is *you* who have added a lot of content which, by your own admission, constitute an "extremely well kept secret" and it is *you* who is claiming it to be "clearly visible" where in fact it is far from clear from my perspective. I was not aware of this "secret". Hjelmslev was not mentioned nor was he given any such importance in the many. many reviews of Syntactic Structures. What you have added could be considered, once it can be verified to be true (which I highly doubt), a minor point of view at best. So I have a right to be skeptical about your claims and bold additions and imo it could very well be original research on your behalf based on flimsy evidence and without secondary sources backing up your claims. The burden is on you to prove otherwise. Nevertheless, I offered to have a respectful discussion on this, but got "nonsense" and an accusation of conspiracy in return from you. This is very disappointing and not the way to have a fruitful discussion. --Zaheen (talk) 12:20, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Pinging @Sagecandor: --Zaheen (talk) 12:20, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Because your statements are not accurate. Seuren's Western Linguistics is a secondary source. Besides, Syntactic Structures directly cites Hjelmslev. I'm just curious to know: I learned from Wikipedia that Chomsky invented formal linguistics. Can I ask you, politely, who you learned it from? Weidorje (talk) 12:49, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Could you please cite the exact quotes from Seuren's Western Linguistics which support the content that you added? --Zaheen (talk) 13:45, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

@Vrrajkum:--Zaheen (talk) 14:20, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

By the way, even though Chomsky NOMINALLY cites Hjelmslev in Syntactic Structures (p. 50), he does NOT do it to indicate that the linguistic theory presented SS is an "adaptation" of Hjelmslev's theory in Prologomena, as claimed by User:Weidorje. Chomsky mentions him in a footnote to show the similarity between his thoughts and those of Hjelmlev's regarding the criteria by which one can judge an eventual linguistic theory. That's it. This cannot justify the overly exaggerated claim the SS is an "adaptation" of Hjelmslev's book. It's an absurd jump in logic. You cannot just say : Chomsky cites author X in a footnote when talking about a specific issue, therefore Chomsky's theory is an adaptation of the theory of X. That is nonsensical. --Zaheen (talk) 16:30, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

I have just finished reading the relevant parts of the secondary source in question, i.e., Western Linguistics by Seuren, and this is my initial take: According to Seuren, Hjelmslev can justifiably be considered a "forerunner" of Generative Grammar, but this is more of a case of ex post facto by looking at his work from today's vantage point. Nevertheless Hjelmslev was most probably the first linguist to try to generate strings from symbols in natural language. His ideas clearly "prefigure the theory of generative grammar". But, within a few years of Prologomena, the same ideas were explored by Zellig Harris, his American counterpart and the original mentor of Chomsky. However, Harris's American school of generative grammar had "better... procedures" and "clarity", and didn't have any "speculative clutter" that European linguists such as Hjelmslevs were bogged with. For example, Hjelmslev's notion of "generation" is based on "texts", i.e. how texts can be generated using some rules. These rules are related to semantics and world knowledge. Seuren states that this approach was "misguided" and "unrealistic." In stark contrast to this, first Harris's work and then Chomsky's work in Syntactic Structures revolves around sentences and firmly rejects any role of semantics in the procedure of generation. Even though Hjelmslev talked about them in a general sense, he didn't provide any "precise" form of "procedures" or "algorithmic computations or rules". Hjelmslev's ideas were not "clear", not "specific", he had no well-fleshed-out theory but a "prologomena" thereof, he was trying to imagine what a theory of language might eventually look like and his presentation was "merely programmatic". Even though Hjelmslev had access to the "same formal-mathematical notions" as his American counterparts, he "failed" to "achieve any breakthrough" while the American linguists such as Harris and later Chomsky were "more successful". --Zaheen (talk) 19:27, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

My current opinion is that Hjelmslev's contribution as an European precursor (albeit primitive, cluttered and unclear, failed and eventually and perhaps unduly under-appreciated) to the Generative Grammar as we know it today (i.e. the successful, dominant syntactic theory in the latter half of the twentieth century promoted by American linguists led by Chomsky) is definitely significant and noteworthy enough to be included in this article. I thank User:Weidorje for bringing it up. But I see no reason to give it more importance than it deserves. And for me, the manner in which Weidorje has incorporated this information is very, very skewed and highly exaggerates Hjelmslev's contribution with respect to Syntactic Structures and just doesn't fit with the rest of the article in its current form. User:Weidorje has injected a lot of his own opinion and original research to blow up the significance of Hjelmslev's ideas more than necessary, a sort of hagiography, which are not backed up by the secondary source. Those need to go. But the rest can stay in the Criticism section, specifically in the subsection about the "originality" of SS. --Zaheen (talk) 19:48, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Response to mentions of Cnilep, not directly related to this article

Regarding the question, "Are Cnilep and Zaheen together in this?" if (and only if) this means contributing to Wikipedia. I have not coordinated with any other editor (but see my comments at various WikiProjects and Talk pages). Weidorje has suggested that I am "primarily aiming at protecting a sociobiological bias" and wish to promote a "claim that Chomsky invented formal linguistics". I have no such wish. For the record, I am a linguistic anthropologist and a sociocultural linguist, not a syntactician. My main concern is that Wikipedia articles reflect secondary and tertiary sources. Cnilep (talk) 23:59, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

On the merits of this article (and see User talk:Cnilep/Archive/06 March 2020#Re: Syntactic structures for full disclosure): This article is about the book Syntactic Structures. It should primarily treat the book, and should prominently cite reactions to the book (e.g. reviews, explicit discussion in literature citing the book, etc.) to verify its information. Wikipedians' individual judgements of the book, of particular approaches to syntax, or of "Chomskian linguistics" as a general notion, may differ and should not be a basis for this article. Obviously each contributor will have their own judgements and biases and these will effect their contributions. I would advise all interested editors to bear in mind the WP:Five pillars of Wikipedia. Cnilep (talk) 01:51, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

Right, so the point made by Seuren as a generative grammarian is that while the American formalists such as Harris in the 1950s made a great job, Hjelmslev was doing a bad job. Prolegomena is a bad book. A bad bad book. However, this is not a question of a literary review. What Seuren makes clear is that the idea of using formal grammars for linguistics comes from Hjelmslev, as far as we know. The fact that there were a lot of people applying them in the 1950s cannot possibly help the case of claiming the theory for Chomsky. But what is also important is that Seuren makes clear that even the idea of recursion derives directly from Hjelmslev (even though it's associated with Chomsky). Seuren furthermore makes clear that the idea of generating all and only all grammatical sentences is derived directly from Hjelmslev. After these points, there's nothing left to be original about generative grammar, even though Prolegomena is, as we all know, a very, very bad book. You also say that Chomsky doesn't properly cite Hjelmslev. Now, could we make this work for the idea that Chomsky invented glossematics? Weidorje (talk) 06:32, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

I think you should forget about the 'good' rating for this article and focus on accuracy. It's quite impossible for Wikipedia to move somebody's theory under another person's name. It needs to be made perfectly clear that Chomsky's work is not original if the article is to be any longer than say thirty words. Now that the comparison with Prolegomena and tagmemics is there, it is hard to see any reason to remove it. It is actually very interesting for everyone to see. Anyway, you still haven't answered my question where you got the idea formal linguistics was invented by Chomsky? Weidorje (talk) 06:40, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

As regards the word 'adaptation', the point is that Syntactic Structures is original to the degree that it makes a tagmemic interpretation of glossematics. Someone else might say that this is not enough to be considered as original anyhow, so we could also go with the word 'presentation'. Weidorje (talk) 07:04, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

@Weidorje: If Syntactic Structures owes as much to Hjelmslev as you suggest, you should not have difficulty finding more secondary sources to support your claim. So far Seuren (a vocal critic of Chomsky's) is the only secondary source you have provided, and this is insufficient to radically restructure the lede of the article or contradict 60+ years of academic reception to SS and try to reframe it as an "adaptation" of Hjelmslev's Prolegomena (SS is, in fact, an adaptation of Chomsky's own Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory). The fact that Chomsky's propositions resemble Hjelmslev's does not make SS an "adaptation" of Hjelmslev, any more than Star Wars is an "adaptation" of Star Trek. Vrrajkum (talk) 16:43, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

Okay, I have been looking into this. Most historical sources (Seuren, Joseph, Tomalin etc.) consider Hjelmslev as a precursor of generative grammar. However, the general consensus seems to be that Syntactic Structures is an adaptation of Zellig Harris's theory. We see quite clearly that formal linguistics, or what many today might call 'generative grammar' was the trend when Chomsky became a linguist. Lightfoot however suggests that Syntactic Structures doesn't consider language cognition at all, and such interpretations were only made afterwards in context with the Chomsky–Skinner debate. Since Harris 1951 doesn't place the object into the verb phrase (as was done by Pike), this would be the difference between Harris and Chomsky, although there are further technical differences which Chomsky discussed in The Logical Structure of Language, pp. 41–45. But we still need to be clear about the origin of the two central ideas of generative grammar which are (1) grammar generates all and only all grammatical sentences (2) it can generate an infinite number of sentences. These are the logical consequences of Carnap's Logical Syntax of Language (1937), although as Seuren suggests, they were first implemented into linguistics by Hjelmslev. This means that the current version of the article is not adequate, although the previous version was also misleading. I accept the deletion of my edits on the condition that I'm allowed to work the article into a form which properly explains why Syntactic Structures became influential, and to avoid confusion, there will need to be a comparison with the relevant original sources which are as follows: (1) Carnap 1937 The Logical Structure of Language (2) Hjelmslev 1943 Prolegomena to a Theory of Language (3) Harris 1951 Structural Linguistics. Syntactic Structures cannot be presented as a literary work in its own right because it is a scientific publication. It is meant to be a textbook, and as in any textbook, the original input is expected to be low. Weidorje (talk) 09:27, 9 March 2020 (UTC)