Birth of Noam Chomsky

Noam Chomsky was born on 7 December 1928 in East Oak Lane. An American linguist, philosopher and political commentator, Chomsky has taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for most of his career. His book Syntactic Structures of 1957 launched a revolution in linguistics with the theory of generative grammar, which holds that humans are born with an innate capacity for language, often called universal grammar. This work influenced psychology, philosophy and computer science. He became prominent as a critic of American foreign policy, beginning with the Vietnam War, and co-wrote Manufacturing Consent on the role of the news media. He is one of the most cited scholars in history.

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