Paul Martin Postal is an American linguist and member of the faculty of New York University

New York University

New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...

.

Postal received his PhD from Yale University

Yale University

Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

 in 1963 and taught at MIT until 1965. That year, he moved to the City University of New York

City University of New York

The City University of New York is the public university system of New York City, with its administrative offices in Yorkville in Manhattan. It is the largest urban university in the United States, consisting of 23 institutions: 11 senior colleges, six community colleges, the William E...

. In 1967 he was appointed to a research position at IBM

IBM

International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...

 and he remained on their research staff until 1994.

An important figure in the early development of generative grammar

Generative grammar

In theoretical linguistics, generative grammar refers to a particular approach to the study of syntax. A generative grammar of a language attempts to give a set of rules that will correctly predict which combinations of words will form grammatical sentences...

, he became a proponent of the generative semantics

Generative semantics

Generative semantics is the name of a research program within linguistics, initiated by the work of various early students of Noam Chomsky: John R. Ross, Paul Postal and later James McCawley...

 movement along with George Lakoff

George Lakoff

George P. Lakoff is an American cognitive linguist and professor of linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley, where he has taught since 1972...

, and James D. McCawley

James D. McCawley

James David McCawley was an American linguist.McCawley was born James Quillan McCawley, Jr. to Dr. Monica Bateman McCawley , a physician and surgeon, and James Quillan McCawley , a businessman...

. In the 1970s, with David Perlmutter, he developed Relational Grammar

Relational grammar

In linguistics, Relational Grammar is a syntactic theory which argues that primitive grammatical relations provide the ideal means to state syntactic rules in universal terms. Relational grammar began as an alternative to transformational grammar....

. Later, with David E. Johnson

David E. Johnson

David E. Johnson is an American linguist. He is the co-inventor of arc pair grammar.- Work :...

, he developed Arc Pair Grammar

Arc pair grammar

In linguistics, Arc Pair grammar is a syntactic theory developed by David E. Johnson and Paul Postal which is a formalized continuation of relational grammar developed by David M. Perlmutter and Paul M...

. These non-transformational theories of grammar have had an indirect but major impact on modern syntactic analysis.

Since his involvement with generative semantics, he has remained a vocal critic of Noam Chomsky

Noam Chomsky

Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years. Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics" and...

 and work done in Chomsky's frameworks.

Selected bibliography

• Postal, Paul M. (1968). Aspects of phonological theory. New York: Harper & Row. ISBN 978-0060452483
• Postal, Paul M. (1972). "The best theory". In S. Peters (Ed.), Goals of linguistic theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. ISBN 978-0133570953
• Johnson, David E.; & Postal, Paul M. (1980). Arc pair grammar. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 9780608033419
• Culicover, P. W.
  Peter Culicover
  Peter W. Culicover is Professor of Linguistics at Ohio State University.He works in the areas of syntactic theory , language learnability and computational modelling of language acquisition and language change....
  
  , & Postal, Paul M. (2000). Parasitic gaps. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press. ISBN 978-0262032841
• Postal, Paul M. (2003). "Policing the Content of Linguistic Examples". Language. 79 (1), 182-188.
• Postal, Paul M. Skeptical linguistic essays (Oxford University Press, USA, 2004). ISBN 978-0195166712

External links

• Paul M. Postal homepage (NYU)