This article discusses the notion of paradigms and its applicability in linguistics. After reviewing relevant literature, the article assumes a broad understanding of the term, influenced by the work of Kuhn and classical approach to paradigms, Goodman on ways of worldmaking, Chalmers on argumentation and progress in philosophy, and Santana on ontologies of language. The author postulates the existence of three possible paradigms in the study of language: the formal paradigm (where language is considered to be a formal object), the mentalist paradigm (language as an instrument of thought), and the communicative paradigm (language as an instrument of communication). The article concentrates on generative grammar, developed over the years by Noam Chomsky, and demonstrates how generativism changed in its approach to language and grammar, exemplifying both the formal paradigm (early generative grammar, culminating with Syntactic Structures), and the mentalist paradigm (manifest already in Aspects of the Theory of Syntax and Cartesian Linguistics), with its recent focus on biolinguistics.
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