Zellig Harris

Zellig Sabbettai Harris was an influential American linguist, mathematical syntactician, and methodologist of science. Originally a Semiticist, he is best known for his work in structural linguistics and discourse analysis and for the discovery of transformational structure in language. These developments from the first 10 years of his career were published within the first 25. His contributions in the subsequent 35 years of his career include transfer grammar, string analysis, elementary sentence-differences, algebraic structures in language, operator grammar, sublanguage grammar, a theory of linguistic information, and a principled account of the nature and origin of language.

23 October 1909

Born on the same birth day (23 October): Adam Nawałka • Alicia Borinsky • Ben Francisco • Bernt Balchen • Bryan Pratt • Christine Yoshikawa • Fernando de la Cerda (1255–1275) • Graham Rix • Gustav Spörer • Jimmy Wayne • Kim Larsen • Yen Chia-kan • Zoe Wiseman

Born in the same month (October 1909): Bill Carr • Dante Quinterno • Donald Coggan • Dorothy Kingsley • Dorothy Livesay • Edward Flynn (boxer) • Erastus Corning 2nd • Herblock • Ignace Lepp • Jesse L. Greenstein • Joaquín Satrústegui • Ken Anderson (politician) • Ken Domon • Robert F. Boyle • Thomas F. Connolly • Whit Bissell • Yasushi Sugiyama