I give Chomsky all the credit he is due. His system is marvelous
and he single-handedly promoted his system above competitors -
AND it mapped *so well* to the advent of first generation
computers and AI in the 60s, that he's hard to beat.
At the same time, I'm more a Lakoff fan. Chomsky killed Lakoff
in early debates and won over the hearts of academics and newly
minted computerphiles, as Lakoff worked fine with or without a
computer and it was boring in comparison.
It took Lakoff almost two decades to recover and then in the
late 1970s, slowly began his rise.
Chomsky rose with the advent of computers. Lakoff, with the rise
of post logical positivist deconstructionalism.
