Editing George Lakoff (section)

===Linguistics wars===
{{further|Linguistics wars}}
Lakoff began his career as a student and later as a teacher of the theory of [[transformational grammar]] developed by [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]] professor [[Noam Chomsky]]. In the late 1960s, however, he joined with others to promote [[generative semantics]]<ref>{{Cite web | last1=Lakoff | first1=George | last2=McCawley | first2=Jim | last3=Ross | first3=John Robert | title=Generative Semantics | url=https://www.db-thueringen.de/servlets/MCRFileNodeServlet/dbt_derivate_00004550/Government_and_Binding.pdf | access-date=25 April 2024 | website=www.db-thueringen.de}}</ref> as an alternative to Chomsky's [[generative linguistics|generative syntax]]. In an interview he stated:

<blockquote>
During that period, I was attempting to unify Chomsky's transformational grammar with formal [[logic]]. I had helped work out a lot of the early details of Chomsky's theory of grammar. Noam claimed then — and still does, so far as I can tell —  that [[syntax]] is independent of meaning, context, background knowledge, memory, cognitive processing, communicative intent, and every aspect of the body...In working through the details of his early theory, I found quite a few cases where [[semantic]]s, context, and other such factors entered into rules governing the syntactic occurrences of phrases and [[morphemes]]. I came up with the beginnings of an alternative theory in 1963 and, along with wonderful collaborators like [[John R. Ross|"Haj" Ross]] and [[James D. McCawley|Jim McCawley]], developed it through the sixties.<ref>John Brockman (03/09/99), Edge.org,  [http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/lakoff/lakoff_p2.html "Philosophy In The Flesh" A Talk With George Lakoff]</ref>
</blockquote>

Lakoff's claim that Chomsky asserts independence between syntax and semantics has been rejected by Chomsky, who holds the following view: <blockquote>A decision as to the boundary separating syntax and semantics (if there is one) is not a prerequisite for theoretical and descriptive study of syntactic and semantic rules. On the contrary, the problem of delimitation will clearly remain open until these fields are much better understood than they are today. Exactly the same can be said about the boundary separating semantic systems from systems of knowledge and belief. That these seem to interpenetrate in obscure ways has long been noted….<ref>{{cite book | last1=Chomsky | first1=Noam | title=Aspects of the Theory of Syntax |date=May 1965 |publisher=MIT Press |page=159}}</ref></blockquote>

In response to Lakoff's making the above claim about Chomsky's view, Chomsky claimed that Lakoff has "virtually no comprehension of the work he is discussing".<ref>[http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1973/jul/19/chomsky-replies/ "Chomsky Replies"], ''The New York Review of Books'', 1973 20;12</ref> Despite Lakoff's mischaracterization of Chomsky's view on the matter, their linguistic positions diverge significantly; this rift between Generative Grammar and Generative Semantics led to fierce, acrimonious debates among linguists that have come to be known as the "[[linguistics wars]]".