Mid -to late- 20th century: generative linguistics and the search for universals.

In 1957, linguistics took a new turning. Noam Chomsky, a teacher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, published a book called Syntactic Structures. This little book started a revolution in linguistics, Chomsky is arguably, the most influential linguist of the century.

He has, in the opinion of many, transformed linguistics from a relatively obscure discipline of interest mainly to PhD students and future missionaries into a major social science of direct relevance to psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, philosophers and others.

Comsky points out that anyone who knows a language must have internalized a set of rules which specify the sequences permitted in their language.

A grammar which consists of a set of statements or rules which specify which sequences of language are possible, and which impossible, is a generative grammar, Chomsky initiated the era of generative linguistics.

The particular type of generative grammar favoured by Chomsky is a so-called transformational one.

Chomsky has not only initiated the era of generative grammars. He has also redirected attention towards language universals.  

He argues that linguistics should concentrate on finding elements and constructions that are available to all languages, whether or not they actually occur. language universals