Quote by John Searle
It seemed to a number of philosophers of language, myself included, that we should attempt to achieve a unification of Chomsky's syntax, with the results of the researches that were going on in semantics and pragmatics. I believe that this effort has proven to be a failure. Though Chomsky did indeed revolutionize the subject of linguistics, it is not at all clear, at the end the century, what the solid results of this revolution are. As far as I can tell there is not a single rule of syntax that all, or even most, competent linguists are prepared to agree is a rule.
Summary
The quote expresses the belief held by the author, a philosopher of language, that attempting to merge Chomsky's syntax with semantic and pragmatic research in linguistics was ultimately unsuccessful. While Chomsky revolutionized the field of linguistics, the quote suggests that at the end of the century, there are no clear, universally agreed-upon rules of syntax. This implies a lack of solid results from Chomsky's revolution in the opinion of the author.
By John Searle
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