David E. Johnson (born December 21, 1946, in Princeton, New Jersey) is an American linguist. He is the co-inventor of arc pair grammar.
Johnson is best known for his work on relational grammar, especially the development with Paul Postal in 1977 of arc pair grammar. [1]
In the late 1990s, Johnson and Shalom Lappin published the first detailed critiques of Noam Chomsky's Minimalist program. [2] [3] This work was followed by a lively debate with proponents of minimalism on the scientific status of the program [4] [5] [6]