Nearly 60 years ago, Noam Chomsky and Morris Halle established the MIT Department of Linguistics. This spring, the department dedicated a wing of its Stata Center home to these founding fathers. 'Together, they defined and transformed the entire field of linguistics,' says Danny Fox, the Anshen-Chomsky Professor of Language and Thought and department head. 'Naming the wing after them seemed like a way of indicating their centrality not only to our discipline but in so many ways to all of cognitive science.' Halle, who taught at MIT from 1951 to 1996, and became an Institute Professor, died in 2018. Chomsky came to MIT in 1955 and retired in 2002, continuing his research as Institute Professor Emeritus. He moved to the University of Arizona several years ago, where he is laureate professor of linguistics. Halle and Chomsky shared an office in MIT's fabled Building 20, and when it was demolished, they moved to a space in the Stata Center. After Chomsky's departure, this area was...
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