Logical Syntax and Semantics: Their Linguistic Relevance

Language, Vol. 31, No. 1 (Jan. - Mar., 1955), 36-45 pp.Статья Ноама Хомски (Чомски) из журнала Language за первый квартал 1955 г. Журнал Language является изданием Linguistic Society of America.The relation between linguistics and logic has been discussed in a recent paper by Bar-Hillel, where it is argued that a disregard for work in logical syntax and semantics has caused linguists to limit themselves too narrowly in their inquiries, and to fall into several errors. In particular, Bar-Hillel asserts, they have attempted to derive relations of synonymy and so-called ‘rules of transformation’, such as the active-passive relation, from distributional studies alone, and they have hesitated to rely on considerations of meaning in linguistic analysis. Chomsky questions the relevance of logical syntax and semantics to this study as dubious and asserts that a closer investigation of the assumptions and concerns of logical syntax and semantics will show that the hope of applying the results which have been achieved in these fields to the solution of linguistic problems is illusory.