REGARDING THE LETTER FROM CHOMSKY
Frederick J.
Newmeyer discusses the fate of Noam Chomsky’s
manuscript The logical structure of
linguistic theory (1955) in his discussion note ‘Getting the word out: The
early generativists’ multipronged efforts to diffuse their ideas’ (Language 90.1.241-68). He questions ‘why
it was not published in 1955 or soon afterward. There are several reasons. The
most direct reason is that it was rejected’ (p. 247). The manuscript was
published only in 1975. Chomsky himself stated in the introduction to his book
that the manuscript was rejected in the fifties by the MIT Press (see Newmeyer,
p. 247). Newmeyer refers to Stephen Murray’s claims that two publishers had been interested in
publishing the manuscript in 1957 and
that there is a letter written by Chomsky that confirms this. This letter was
allegedly written to Cornelis van Schooneveld (1921-2003), the editor of
Mouton’s series Janua linguarum in
which Chomsky’s Syntactic structures was
published in 1957. Newmeyer remarks: ‘One wishes that Murray had scanned
Chomsky’s aerogram into his article to settle the question once and for all.
Unfortunately, he did not’ (p. 247).
This
question can be settled since this letter is held at Leiden University Library.
It was written by Chomsky on September 12, 1957. The complete letter is as
follows: ‘Dear
Cornelius, I was very pleased to hear that you would be interested in publishing my
long manuscript. The situation with respect to it is as follows. I have a
tentative agreement with North Holland to publish it, if it meets their length
requirements (i.e., if it’s shortened sufficiently). I don’t feel quite ready
to make a definite commitment myself as yet, since I am still not satisfied
with the present form of the manuscript, and I feel that the exposition can be
very much improved in many places. I hope to spend most of this year reworking
it, and with luck, I may be finished in the spring. As I say, I don’t feel that
I can say anything more definite until I am a little clearer as to the final
form of the manuscript. Perhaps I may contact you then, if you will still be
interested. Sorry I missed you when you were here. Thanks for sending the review. Sincerely, Noam ’ (Leiden
University Library, Collection C.H. van Schooneveld, Inv. No. 1, file 617; this
letter was partly published earlier in The C.H. van Schooneveld Collection in Leiden University Library.
Editorial correspondence and documents relating to Mouton & Co., The Hague,
and other papers in the fields of Slavistics and linguistics, by Jan
Paul Hinrichs (Leiden: Leiden University
Library, 2001), p. 9).
It is unclear whether Chomsky actually submitted a manuscript to Van
Schooneveld but it seems certain that Mouton was interested in publishing it,
and that North-Holland was as well. The letter quoted above proves that Murray was
right in questioning the claims that Chomsky made to him ‘that he had “never heard of the alleged offers
to publish LSTL”’ (Newmeyer, p. 247).
Jan Paul Hinrichs
| Published earlier in Language 90 (2014), Number 3, p. 561.
