Ray C. Dougherty (born 1940) is an American linguist and was a member of the Arts and Science faculty at

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...

until 2014 (retired). He received his bachelor's and master's degrees in engineering from

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College ( ) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, Dartmouth is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the America ...

in the early 1960s and his Ph.D. in linguistics from the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

in 1968. At MIT, Dougherty was one of the first students of

Noam Chomsky Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American professor and public intellectual known for his work in linguistics, political activism, and social criticism. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is also a ...

, working in the field of

transformational grammar In linguistics, transformational grammar (TG) or transformational-generative grammar (TGG) was the earliest model of grammar proposed within the research tradition of generative grammar. Like current generative theories, it treated grammar as a sys ...

. During the

Linguistics Wars The linguistics wars were extended disputes among American theoretical linguists that occurred mostly during the 1960s and 1970s, stemming from a disagreement between Noam Chomsky and several of his associates and students. The debates started in ...

of the 1970s, Dougherty was a critic of the

generative semantics Generative semantics was a research program in theoretical linguistics which held that syntax, syntactic structures are computed on the basis of meaning (linguistics), meanings rather than the other way around. Generative semantics developed out ...

movement. Specializing in

computational linguistics Computational linguistics is an interdisciplinary field concerned with the computational modelling of natural language, as well as the study of appropriate computational approaches to linguistic questions. In general, computational linguistics ...

, Dougherty has published several books and articles on the subject. In recent years, Dougherty has become interested in the study of

biolinguistics Biolinguistics can be defined as the Biology, biological and Evolutionary linguistics, evolutionary study of language. It is highly interdisciplinary as it draws from various fields such as sociobiology, linguistics, psychology, anthropology, math ...

, focusing on the role of the

cochlea The cochlea is the part of the inner ear involved in hearing. It is a spiral-shaped cavity in the bony labyrinth, in humans making 2.75 turns around its axis, the modiolus (cochlea), modiolus. A core component of the cochlea is the organ of Cort ...

in the evolution of animal communication systems and naturalistic applications of

information theory Information theory is the mathematical study of the quantification (science), quantification, Data storage, storage, and telecommunications, communication of information. The field was established and formalized by Claude Shannon in the 1940s, ...

. Dougherty has made numerous contributions to advancing the study of

semiotics Semiotics ( ) is the systematic study of sign processes and the communication of meaning. In semiotics, a sign is defined as anything that communicates intentional and unintentional meaning or feelings to the sign's interpreter. Semiosis is a ...

at New York University.

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*"A grammar of coordinate conjoined structures, Part I," 1970, ''Language'' 46: 850. *"A grammar of coordinate conjoined structures, Part II," 1971, ''Language'' 47: 298. *"Generative semantics methods: A Bloomfieldian counterrevolution," 1974, ''International Journal of Dravidian Linguistics'' 3: 255. *"Harris and Chomsky at the Syntax-Semantics Boundary," 1975, In D. Hockney (ed.), ''Contemporary Research In Philosophical Logic and Linguistic Semantics'', (Dordrecht: Reidel). *"Einstein and Chomsky on scientific methodology," 1976, ''Linguistics'' 167: 5. *"An Information-Theoretical Model of Grammar Reproduction," 1979, Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America. *"Current Views of Language and Grammar," 1983, In F. Machlup & U. Mansfield (eds.), ''The Study of Information: Interdisciplinary Messages'', (New York: Wiley). *''Digital Signal Processing'', 1984 (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall) (with William D. Stanley and Gary R. Dougherty). *"Language learning machines," 1987, ''Semiotic Inquiry'' 8: 27. *''Natural Language Computing: An English Generative Grammar in Prolog'', 1994 (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Press). *"Strings, Lists and Intonation in Garden Path Sentences: ''Can it'', ''Plan it'', or ''planet''?" 2004, In C. Leclère, É. Laporte, M. Piot, & M. Silberztein (eds.), ''Syntax, Lexis & Lexicon-Grammar: Papers in Honour of Maurice Gross'', (Philadelphia: John Benjamins). *"Information Theory Defines 'Mathematically Conceivable Communication System'," 2007, Proceedings of the Biolinguistic Investigations Conference, Santo Domingo. *"A Minimalist Theory of Auditory Interfaces: Why the Larynx Descended," 2007, Proceedings of the Biolinguistic Investigations Conference, Santo Domingo (with Garrett Neske).

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See also