Levels of adequacy

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In his work Aspects of the Theory of Syntax (1965), Noam Chomsky introduces a hierarchy of levels of adequacy for evaluating grammars (theories of specific languages) and metagrammars (theories of grammars).

These levels constitute a taxonomy of theories (a grammar of a natural language being an example of such a theory) according to validation. This taxonomy might be extended to scientific theories in general, and from there even stretched into the field of the aesthetics of art.^[1] This present article's use of the phrase as a terminus technicus should not be confused with its everyday language uses.