This is the long-awaited third edition of Chomsky' s outstanding collection of essays on language and mind. The first six chapters, originally published in the 1960s, made a groundbreaking contribution to linguistic theory. This new edition complements them with an additional chapter and a new preface, bringing Chomsky' s influential approach into the twenty-first century.

Chapters 1-6 present Chomsky's early work on the nature and acquisition of language as a genetically-endowed, biological system (Universal Grammar), the rules and principles of which we acquire as internalized knowledge (I-language). Over the past fifty years, this framework has sparked an explosion of inquiry into a wide range of languages, and has yielded some major theoretical questions. The final chapter revisits the key issues, reviewing the "biolinguistic" approach that has guided Chomsky' s work from its origins to the present day, and raising some novel and exciting challenges for the study of language and mind.

Preface to the third edition

Preface to the second edition

Preface to the first edition

1 Linguistic contributions to the study of mind: past

2 Linguistic contributions to the study of mind: present

3 Linguistic contributions to the study of mind: future

4 Form and meaning in natural languages

5 The formal nature of language

6 Linguistics and philosophy

7 Biolinguistics and the human capacity

Index