Formal analysis and functional analysis of verbal behavior: Notes on the debate between Chomsky and Skinner

Abstract

Mehler's affirmation (Mehler, 1969, p. 3) is doubtless based essentially on the famous critique made ten years earlier by N. Chomsky (Chomsky, 1959) of b.F. Skinner's work, Verbal Behavior (Skinner, 1957). It also appears in a collection of articles (Mehler, 1969) among which is found the French translation of this manifesto like text by the master of transformational linguistics. If one considers the actual vitality of the behaviorist movement, especially that of Skinnerian inspiration ? a vitality marked by the fecundity of its methods, the extent of the behavioral domains submitted to its variety of experimental analysis, the multitude of its applications, not to mention the repercussions of its philosophical extensions (see especially Skinner, 1971 ), one can only be astonished at such a declaration, which we have elsewhere attributed to wishful thinking (Richelle, 1971, p. 48), but which its author unhesitatingly presents, not as an opinion, but as a statement of fact. This gives an indication of the influence of Chomsky's review on certain trends in modern psychology and psycholinguistics. While giving his critique an unaccustomed breadth and intensity, Chomsky undertook to explicate the various concepts of the analysis of behavior adopted by Skinner. If not informed firsthand, the reader might believe himself duly edified after reading Chomsky's presen tation, and would rally without hesitation to the critiques made therein. Consequently, he

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