By Shatakshi Bhargava

Introduction
Avram Noam Chomsky, generally known as Noam Chomsky is considered as The Father of Modern Linguistics. He was born on 7 December 1928, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. He was an American linguist, philosopher, historian, political activist, social critic and cognitive scientist. Chomsky was born into a middle-class family with his mother, Elsie Simonofsky being a teacher and an activist and his father, William Zev Chomsky being a school principal.
Chomsky went to Oak Lane Country Day School for his primary education and then moved to Central High School at the age of 12 for his secondary education. He was a part of various clubs and societies and was bright in academics as well. He also attended the Hebrew High School at Gratz College during this same period.
At the age of 16, Chomsky went to the University of Pennsylvania for his further studies and chose a general programme of study which included philosophy, logic and languages. He simultaneously developed an interest towards learning the Arabic language. However, he later dropped out and moved to Kibbutz in Mandatory Palestine. Later, he received his B.A and M.A in nontraditional modes of study. From 1951-1955, Chomsky was named to the society of fellows at Harvard University where he did his research. He also got an opportunity to present his ideas at lectures given at the University of Chicago and Yale University in 1954. In 1955, Chomsky received his PhD for his ideas on Transformational Grammar.
 
Important Life Events
At the age of 10, when Chomsky was completing his primary education, he had his first article published for his school newspaper on Rise of fascism in Europe after the Spanish Civil War. Later, this article became the basis of an essay to be presented at the New York University.
While studying at the University of Pennsylvania, he taught Hebrew to children to fund his undergraduate degree.
In 1949, Chomsky married Carol Schatz, a woman he had known since childhood. Carol was an educational specialist. Their relationship lasted for 59 years until Carol died due to cancer in 2008.
In 1952, he published his article, ‘System of Syntactic Analysis’ in ‘The Journal of Symbolic Logic.’
Chomsky was appointed as an assistant professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1955.
In 1961, he was made a full professor in the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics.
In 1962, he was appointed as a Plenary Speaker at the Ninth International Congress of Linguistics at Cambridge, Massachusetts.
He continued to publish several influential works like Aspects of the theory of syntax (1966), Topics in the theory of Generative Grammar (1966) and Cartesian Linguistics: A chapter in the History of Rationalist Thought (1966).
He published an essay called ‘The Responsibility of Intellectuals’ in ‘The New York Review of Books’ in February 1967 which vocalized his views against the United States Foreign Policy.
In 1969, he published his first political book known as ‘American Power and the New Mandarins.’ Later, he published several other political books like, At War with Asia (1971), The Backroom Boys (1973), For Reasons of State (1973), and Peace in the Middle-East? (1975).
He was named one of the ‘Makers of the twentieth century’ by the London Times in 1970.
In 1970, he gave a lecture at the Hanoi University of Science and Technology. His lectured were collected and published as ‘Problems of Knowledge and Freedom’ in late 1971.
He also won Guggenheim Fellowship for Humanities, U.S and Canada.
In 1979, Chomsky signed a petition in the support of the free-speech rights of Robert Faurisson due to which he earned a lot of criticism.
In 1984, he was given the APA Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions to Psychology.
In 1985, he gave public lectured at Managua Nicaragua's Contra War on politics and linguistics to the workers organizations and refugees which were later collected and published as ‘On Power and Ideology: The Managua Lectures’ in 1987.
He won the NCTE George Orwell Award for Distinguished Contribution to Honesty and Clarity in Public Language twice (1987, 1989).
His next set of lectures at Australia in 1995 on The Cause of the East Timorese Independence were collected and published as ‘Powers and Prospects’ in 1996. Noam Chomsky’s efforts were given much importance when East Timor’s independence from Indonesia was finally achieved.
He also won Kyoto Prize in Basic Sciences (1988), Lannan Literary Award for Non-fiction (1992), Helmholtz Medal (1996) and Benjamin Franklin Medal in Computer and Cognitive Sciences (1999).
He was honored with the Sydney Peace Prize in 2011.
 
Major Works
A major work of his that has a lot of importance is the book ‘Counter-Revolutionary Violence – Bloodbaths in Fact & Propaganda’ which he wrote in collaboration with Edward S. Herman. This book was published in 1973, and criticizes the United States foreign policy in Indochina, with a significant focus on the Vietnam War.
His contributions in Linguistics are of major significance. They include Chomsky Normal Form, Chomsky Hierarchy and Chomsky Schutzenberger Theorem.
He also contributed in the fields of Phonology, Phrase-structure Grammar, Minimalist Program, Parasitic Gap and Non-configurational Language.
One of his most powerful works is a book that he wrote in collaboration with Edward Herman known as ‘Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media.’ They talk about a Propaganda model in the book which basically tells us that how the population is manipulated by the mass communication business.
 
Key works
Chomsky Normal Form: According to this theory, there are many normal forms of context-free grammar (CFG) which are broad enough, so that any grammar has an equivalent normal form version.
A context-free grammar is considered to be in Chomsky Normal Form (CNF) if every production in the grammar is of any form given below:
A -> BC
A -> a
S -> ε
Where A, B and C are variables and a is a terminal symbol (a symbol that represents a constant value). S is the start symbol and ε denotes the empty string.
Every Grammar in Chomsky Normal Form is Context Free. Again, every context grammar can be transformed into an equivalent one which is in Chomsky normal form and has a size no larger than the square of the original grammar’s size.

Chomsky hierarchy: This theory classifies the formal language into four types.

1. Type 0: Unrestricted grammar- There are no restrictions to define the productions. The languages generated by these grammars are known as recursively enumerable. These languages are recognised by Turing machine. These are of the form: α → β
2. Type 1: Restricted grammar (Context-sensitive) - These grammars generate context-sensitive languages. These are of the form: α → β, with the following condition |β| >=|α| i.e length of β is greater then length of α.
3. Type 2: Context free grammar - These grammars generate context-free languages. The productions are of the form A → α. Here α ⊆ (V ∪ T)*. Here α represents a sentinel form.
4. Type 3: Regular grammar - These grammars generate regular languages. These could be of the form A → α or A → αB.

 
Here,
T = Terminals (a,b,…)
V = Variables (A,B,...)
α, β ε (V ∪ T)*.
 
Conclusion
Noam Chomsky is a living legend in the field of linguistics as well as politics. His contributions, efforts and achievements are countless and unmatched!
 
Language is a process of Free Creation: its laws and principles are fixed, but the manners in which the principles of generations are used is free and infinitely varied. Even the interpretation and the use of words involve a process of free creation.