American Linguistics in Transition From Post-Bloomfieldian Structuralism to Generative Grammar

This volume is devoted to a major chapter in the history of linguistics in the United States, the period from the 1930s to the 1980s, and focuses primarily on the transition from (post-Bloomfieldian) structural linguistics to early generative grammar. The first three chapters in the book discuss the rise of structuralism in the 1930s; the interplay between American and European structuralism; and the publication of Joos's Readings in Linguistics in 1957. Later chapters explore the beginnings of generative grammar and the reaction to it from structural linguists; how generativists made their ideas more widely known; the response to generativism in Europe; and the resistance to the new theory by leading structuralists, which continued into the 1980s. The final chapter demonstrates that contrary to what has often been claimed, generative grammarians were not in fact organizationally dominant in the field in the United States in the 1970s and 1980s.

Frederick J. Newmeyer, Professor Emeritus, University of Washington

Frederick J. Newmeyer is Professor Emeritus at the University of Washington and Adjunct Professor at the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University. He specializes in syntactic theory and the history of linguistics, and is interested in particular in whether the work of functional
linguists is compatible with, challenges, or refutes mainstream thinking in generative grammar. He has been President of the Linguistic Society of America and an editor of Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, and his many publications include the OUP volumes Possible and Probable Languages: A
Generative Perspective on Linguistic Typology (2005) and Measuring Grammatical Complexity (co-edited with Laurel B. Preston; 2014; paperback 2017).

1. The structuralist ascendancy in American linguistics
2. American structuralism and European structuralism: How they saw each other
3. Martin Joos's Readings in Linguistics as the apogee of American structuralism
4. Early transformational generative grammar: Some controversial issues
5. The diffusion of generativist ideas
6. The European reception of early transformational generative grammar
7. The contested LSA presidential election of 1970
8. Charles Hockett's attempt to resign from the LSA in 1982
9. The generativist non-dominance of the field in the 1970s and 1980s
Appendices