Transformational

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Transformational Generative Grammar

• SM2220 The Writing Machine
• March 8, 2005
• Linda Lai

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What is grammar?

• Grammar is the detailed descriptions of a
  particular language.
• To develop a theory of language structure, one
  must first study a particular grammar.

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What is grammar?

• Grammar covers
• morphology ??
• internal structure of words
• syntax ??
• how words are combined to form phrases and
  sentences
• phonology???(????)
• pronunciation
• semantics ???
• meanings

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What is grammar?

• Grammar can be devised and compiled.
• Grammar takes the form of a set of rules or
  principles which tell you how to speak
  (pronounce and form phrases and sentences) and
  understand the language.

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What is grammar?

• Descriptive rules Vs Prescriptive rules
• ?????? Vs ??????
• Modern linguistics (since the 1970s) is purely
  descriptive
• i.e. it doesnt tell us whether a sentence is
  correct/incorrect, but
• grammatical/ungrammatical
• well-formed/ill-formed

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Generative Grammar

• Founded by Noam Chomsky in the late 1950s
• Language is a rule-governed system
• i.e. a restricted set of principles (a grammar)
  can account for a wide range of concrete language
  practices.
• Generative grammar studies concentrate on
  sentence grammar..
• i.e. principles that distinguish possible English
  sentences from impossible ones.

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What is Grammar?

• Chomskys Generative Grammar ????
• Competence infinite rule-governed creativity
• Not only about knowledge of familiar sentences,
  but also for those we have never heard of before
• i.e. the ability to produce comprehensible new
  sentences
• Chomskys mentalist view
• Grammar is about
• competence performance
• Speaker/hearers knowledge of the language
  actual use of language in real situations

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What is Grammar?

• Chomskys mentalist view
• Grammar is about
• competence performance
• Speaker/hearers knowledge of the language
  actual use of language in real situations
• competence well-formed sentences Vs ill-formed
  sentences
• My uncle realizes that Im a busy cook.
• My cat realises that Im a lousy cook.
• My goldfish realises that Im a lousy cook.
• My pet amoeba realises that Im a lousy cook.
• My frying pan realizes that Im a lousy cook.
• My sincerity realises that Im a lousy cook.
• My birth realises that Im a lousy cook.
• The oddity of some of these sentences is
  pragmatic, NOT linguistic.

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What is Grammar?

• Chomskys mentalist view
• Grammar is about
• competence performance
• Speaker/hearers knowledge of the language
  actual use of language in real situations
• performance
• Ability to mobilize rules to deal with a
  communication situation Jean Berkos wug example
  (1958, a childs learning of English
  morphology)
• Many cases of grammatical errors are actually
  positive examples of the use of grammar.
  (Akmajian and Henry, 1975, on a 3-year-old girl
  producing yes-no questions)
• e.g. Is I can do that?
• Is you should eat the apple?
• Is the apple juice wont spill?

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More examples of the generative capacity of
grammar

1. This boy must seem incredibly stupid to this
   girl.
2. This boy must seem incredibly stupid to that
   girl.
3. That boy must seem incredibly stupid to that
   girl.
4. That boy must seem incredibly stupid to this
   girl.
5. This boy must seem incredibly stupid to this boy.
6. This boy must seem incredibly stupid to that boy.
7. That boy must seem incredibly stupid to that boy.
8. That boy must seem incredibly stupid to this boy.
9. This girl must seem incredibly stupid to this
   girl.
10. This girl must seem incredibly stupid to that
    girl.
11. That girl must seem incredibly stupid to that
    girl.
12. That girl must seem incredibly stupid to this
    girl.
13. This girl must seem incredibly stupid to this
    boy.
14. This girl must seem incredibly stupid to that
    boy.
15. That girl must seem incredibly stupid to that
    boy.
16. That girl must seem incredibly stupid to this boy.

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Generative Grammar the X-bar theory

• X-bar theory is about phrase structure.
• It assumes that all syntactic constituents are
  organized around a head, X.
• X can be any word or morpheme category.
• X is expanded by the addition of a complement to
  form a larger unit, X (X-bar)

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Constraints of rules

• some rules have to be banned
• Restricted distribution a word cant just turn
  up anywhere, e.g.
• (1) Pigs love truffles.
• (2) Humans love to eat pigs.
• (3) Peter is pigs
• (The type of sentence frames decides the mode
  of restriction of distribution)

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X-bar theory constraints

• Consider the word very in English (or ?? in
  Chinese)
• He is very slow very Adjective ???
• He walks very slowly very Adverb ??
• Very girls love to have fun very Noun ??
• He very adores her very Verb ??
• It happened very after the party very
  preposition ???
• (Note also other restrictions in distribution.)

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Generative principles beyond grammatical
competence

• Automatic writing
• A challenge of restricted distribution
• Japanese Haiku
• A literary form that demands a grammar that is
  different from that of the actual spoken language
  in daily life.

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Reference

• Adger, David, 2003 Core Syntax a Minimalist
  Approach. Oxford University Press.
• Haegeman, Liliane and Guéron, Jacqueline, 1999
  English Grammar a Generative Perspective.
  Blackwell Publishing.
• Hornstein, Norbert, 2001 Move! A Minimalist
  Theory of Construal. Blackwell Publishing.
• Radford, Andrew, 1988 Transformational Grammar,
  a First Course. Cambridge University Press.