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TRANSFORMATIONAL GENERATIVE GRAMMAR

INTRODUCTION
Grammar, broadly speaking, is concerned not just with the principle which determine the formation of words,
Phrases and sentences, but also with the principles which govern it interpretation (Radford 2002). Thus, it is
obvious that the concept of grammar is central to any form of language study.
In the beginning, English grammar was designed to provide basis for the teaching and learning of Latin which
was then the most prestigious language. This idea did not provide the expected positive results as it led to the
concept of prescriptive grammar and the problems of inconsistency of form and standard even in the study of
English as a language. Arising from these, some scholars met and decided to study English grammar from three
area of focus to solve the problem: codifying the principles of the language and reducing them to rules;
settling disputed points and deciding cases of divided usage; and pointing out common errors or what were
supposed to be errors and thus correct and improve the language (Lamidi 2000).
This decision was the beginning of grammatical theories as it paved way for the concept of traditional grammar
which was the basis for other grammatical theories. Notable grammatical theories emanated, thereafter, include:
constituent structure grammar, Transformational generative grammar, tagmemics grammar, systemic grammar
etc. All these grammatical theories led to the rapid development of English language both at home and in
diaspora.
In linguistics, transformational grammar (TG) or transformational-generative grammar (TGG) is part of the
theory of generative grammar, especially of natural languages. It considers grammar to be a system of rules that
generate exactly those combinations of words that form grammatical sentences in a given language and involves
the use of defined operations (called transformations) to produce new sentences from existing ones.
The method is commonly associated with the American linguist Noam Chomsky's biologically oriented concept of
language.
"The new linguistics, which began in 1957 with the publication of Noam Chomsky's Syntactic Structures, deserves
the label 'revolutionary.' After 1957, the study of grammar would no longer be limited to what is said and how it
is interpreted. In fact, the word grammar itself took on a new meaning. The new linguistics defined grammar as
our innate, subconscious ability to generate language, an internal system of rules that constitutes our human
language capacity. The goal of the new linguistics was to describe this internal grammar.
"Unlike the structuralists, whose goal was to examine the sentences we actually speak and to describe their
systemic nature, the transformationalists wanted to unlock the secrets of language: to build a model of our
internal rules, a model that would produce all of the grammatical—and no ungrammatical—sentences." (M. Kolln
and R. Funk, Understanding English Grammar. Allyn and Bacon, 1998).

TRANSFORMATIONAL GENERATIVE GRAMMAR AND COGNITIVE THEORY OF NOAM CHOMSKY

He maintained a view that most of the knowledge on language is innate, so the child can have a large part of
prior knowledge on language structures in insubstantial and the child has to only learn the idiosyncratic
structures of the language. The above said view of Chomsky is so much related to the naturalist theory of
language learning. “Generative Grammar is a way of describing the technique in which people learn to
communicate. The core of this theory is the idea that all human languages originate from a common source, an
innate set of grammatical rules and approaches that is hardwired into the human mind. This is a very naturalistic
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approach, but one that has found ever increasing acceptance amongst experts in the field” (Chomsky, 1986). He
also spoke about the difference between ‘competence’ and ‘performance’ in language use. He strongly argued
that the person who speaks can make linguistic errors and it is irrelevant to the linguistic competence. In that
way, he made his views clear that the linguistic performance is totally different and irrelevant to the competence
in linguistics. His thoughts gave a way to bio linguistics and considering the language learning as a natural
process. He termed the inborn language talent of a baby as Primary Linguistic Data (PLD) and the child can learn
language when it supplemented with the Language Acquisition Device (LAD) and it is unique and used only by
humans. He
insisted that efficiency in framing the LAD is a responsibility of linguistics and PLD is common to every human
being. Chomsky’s views on linguistics mostly focussed with respect to the nature and understanding specifically
to the structure and use of language. We can better understand this by the following Chomsky's words "Notice
that similar considerations show that knowing-how - for example, knowing how to ride a bicycle – cannot be
analysed in terms of abilities, dispositions, etc.; rather, there appears to be an irreducible cognitive element.".
(Chomsky2000) pg.52.
Transformational Generative Grammar Explained
This concept is best explained by considering the two key words in the string. There are: transformational and
generative. It is necessary to do this because our knowledge of their meanings will go a long way to provide a
quick and through understanding of the concept.
“Transformational” is an adjectival derivation from the noun transformation. Transformation in this sense refers
to a device or a process of changing the form of one linguistic structure to another. For instance, active sentence
can be changed to a passive one while a simple declarative can be changed into a question through the use of
transformation (Lamidi 2000).
“Generative” on the other hand is an adjective formed from the “verb” generate. And according to Tomori
(1997), generate in this sense (as used in generative grammar) does not mean to produce. It means to describe.
When it is said that a rule generates a sentence, what this means in transformational grammar is that, a
particular rule or set of rules describe how a particular linguistic element or string is formed.
Combining the explanations on the above two key words, therefore, transformational generative grammar
implies the type of grammar that seeks to explain the rules governing structural changes and the formation of
utterances. An attempt to make explicit the knowledge which is implicit in the native speaker of any language
(Tomori 1997).

SURFACE STRUCTURE AND DEEP STRUCTURE:

Chomsky introduced his theory on Transformational Grammar (TG) and it challenged the structural linguistics. TG
related the word meaning and sound. The TG rules were expressed in mathematical notation by Chomsky. In this
theory he gave an in-depth information on the deep structure and surface structure of the language. The deep
structure acts as a foundation and gives conceptual meaning and the surface structure acts as a spoken
utterances. Kolln and Funk explained TG as, “Unlike the structuralists, whose goal was to examine the sentences
we actually speak and to describe their systemic nature, the transformationalists wanted to unlock the secrets of
language: to build a model of our internal rules, a model that would produce all of the grammatical – and no
ungrammatical – sentences.”
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Chomsky explained the deep structure as inaudible voice of the language and this deep structure can be
converted by generative transformational rules of the language into a surface structure, the same time he
believed that it can be converted in abundant ways. He further stated that the deep structure is few in number
and it is easy when compared to the surface structure of the language. Grammar is generative in all ways. A
generative grammar is not much worried with any actual facts of the language but it was very brave and
concerned on the possible ways and facts of the language. So we can sum up that all the generative grammars
are transformational in nature. If predictive and explicit type of grammar is generative it will bring transformation
as Chomsky believed, argued and proved. So, his theory of Transformational Generative Grammar (TGG)
provided both the transformational and generative. And this view can be better understood by Chomsky’s words,
“It is the idea of innate and natural grammar that really sticks. While there is little dispute at this point that
some of the more fundamental functions of the human brain are transmitted as instincts. We don't have to be
taught to breathe, after all. The concept of an underlying mental matrix that informs all of human language is a
bit of a departure from more traditional views on the origin of verbal communication.” (Chomsky, 2000).
According to the above said view, he explained that every sentence in the mind of the speaker is an invisible
deep structure and the speaker is transforming this deep structure as a visible structure of language like spoken
or written language by using the transformational rules of grammar. The syntax which is invisible in the speaker’s
mind can be transformed by transformational rules. So a generative’ grammar is not concerned with any actual
set of rules on sentence formation or sentences of the language but with the possible set of sentences, hence
this kind of generative grammar is transformational also. And TGG is generative and to say that it is explicitly,
clearly, methodically, accurately indicates all other possible sentences of the language. Unlike the sentence
structures which existed before TG, this new TG theory gave a strong foundation to build embedding sentences.
For example, the sentence “Has Raj seen Marry?” can be transformed as “Raj has seen Mary”. The same time TG
replaced the old phrase-structure grammar by its new simple and sophisticated way of sentence structures.
1. The Description of Transformational Generative Grammar
As stated in the introduction, this grammar is purely descriptive. It is an explicit knowledge of the native speaker.
Its primary purpose is not to serve as a model to guide the performance of any one using the language (Tomori
1997).
The Key concepts in transformational generative grammar
1. Phrase Structure (or F) Rules.
With this rules, utterances are analyzed in terms of their syntactic constituents. For example, the sentences
“someone ate the food” can be analyzed as subject + verb + objective. The instruction formulas to perform basic
operation in TG are referred to as re-writing rules. Based on the rules of phrase structure, therefore, the full
derivation of the sentence, The man lost the money could be given as follows:
Sentence
NP + VP
T + N + VP
T + N + Verb + NP
The + N + Verb + NP
The + man + verb + NP
The + man + lost + T + N
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The + man +lost + the + N

The + man + lost + the + money
In the above example, every line is referred to as string while the last line that could not be rewritten again is
called the terminal string. The constituent structure of the same sentence can be shown in a diagram or phrase
maker like this:
Sentence

NP VP

T N Verb NP

The man lost T N

The Money
Adopted from Tomori (1997)
The main limitations of phrase structure rules are that while they can describe the overt syntactic structures of
most utterances, they cannot make explicit the rules underlying the formation of the sentences and they cannot
put the rules in the proper order in which they are applied to produce well formed sentences.
2. Transformational Structure Rules
This is the second level of transformational grammar and the level in which transformational rules operate in
reality. Chomsky (1957) discussed the following five transformational rules:
i. T and: This is the rule for conjoining two sentences of similar constituents for example.
a. The honest boy will be rewarded
b. The best girl will be rewarded
c. a and b: The honest boy and the best girl will be rewarded
ii. I nf: This is the transformational rule for deriving the correct form of the verb in a sentences. For instance, in
the sentence‟He has a book”. ‘has’ and not ‘have’ is the correct verb.
iii. Tp: This is the transformational rule for deriving the passive from the active form of a sentence. For example,
Ade killed a goat will be a transformed to ‘A goat was killed by Ade’.
iv. T not: This is the rule for forming the negative version of positive sentences. For example, He could eat the
meat will have the negative form of ‘He could not eat the meat’.
v. Tq: This is the rule for forming questions from positive sentences. For example, We eat our food. Do we eat
food?
3. Morphophonemic Rules
This is the last level of transformational grammar and it is the level of TG that converts the string of morphemes
comprising a terminal string into the sounds of the language. For example, go + past = went, product +tion =
production. The rules that govern the phonetic realization of morphemes are morphophonemic rules.
4. Context Free Rules
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These are rewriting rules which stipulate that sentences are combinations of noun phrases plus verb phrases. The
rules do not specify the kind of noun phrases that can meaningfully and syntactically combine with what types of
verb phrases. Consider these examples S= NP + VP
The girl peeled the yam
*The lizard peeled the yam
The boy is laughing
*The tree is laughing
The fact that not every VP can acceptably combine with every NP in English and also not VP can take NP object
renders the rule less effective.
4a. Context Sensitive Rules (syntagmatic)
This is otherwise known as “selectional rules”. These are rewriting rules used to describe the limitation of some
items to co-occur with certain linguistic items. That is, there are restrictions on the acceptable co-occurrence of
certain linguistic items if meaningful, sensible and flawless language structures are to be granted. Consider these
examples S = NP + VP + NP = Sentence is a Noun Phrase + a verb phrase + a noun phrase.
The boy is eating the fruits
*The stone is eating the fruits
The goat is eating the fruits
The boy is laughing
*The goat is laughing
*The stone is laughing
4b. Sub Categorization Rules (paradigmatic)
These are rewriting rules that limit certain classes of linguistic items to certain syntactic frames. According
Tomori (1997) the strict sub colorization rules are meant to show what verbs (or other lexical or grammatical
items) can collocate in what sentence patterns.
____ ____ ____ Sadly. He/She, they/we, (wept/told) the story
____ ____ ____ Happily. He/she/they/we (sang/cried) the song
4c. Complex Symbol
This is defined as a collection of features peculiar to the particular linguistic item in its occurrence in utterances of
the language.
5. Category Symbols
These are symbols which define the grammatical classes of linguistic items. Symbols like NP and VP are in this
category.
The Theory Discussed
One of the major issues in transformational generative grammar is the concept of context-free rule. This is so
because the rule does not specify what type of NP could go with what type of VP. And the fact with English
language is that not every VP can go with every NP. Also it is true that not every VP can go into various structures
such as
S -- NP + VP + NP.
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To take care of the inadequacies found in the context free rules, some modifications were introduced into the
theory of transformational generative grammar. In 1965, Chomsky replaced the context free rule with the
context sensitive rules.
Under the context sensitive rules, two other such classifications were introduced. These were strict sub
categorization and sectional rules. The rules introduced to limit certain classes of linguistic items to certain
syntactic frames are known as sub categorization. On the other hand, the rules introduced to describe the
restriction on the co-occurrence of certain linguistics items are referred to as sectional rules. The following
examples will be appropriate here.
The class captain opened the door. Under the context free rule, the sentence could be rewritten as NP + VP +
NP. This is possible because “opened” is one of the transitive verbs in English language. But if we take another
sentence like ‘He wept’ we can see that the rewriting rule of this sentence is NP + VP. The “wept” used in the
second sentence is one of the intransitive verbs in English language and it cannot take any object.
Therefore, Chomsky’s stick sub-categorization rules are meant to show what verb can collocate in what sentence
pattern while the features of co-occurrence of different NP with VPs are specified in the “selectional rules”. To
explain this further, Chomsky equally introduced the concept of complex symbol. This is defined as a collection of
features (that are) peculiar to the particular linguistic item in its occurrence in utterances of the language (Tomori
1997).
Chomsky’s TG theory has to face the criticism that
it made the theories more abstract and complex in many respects. James rightly said, “(T)he tinkering failed to
solve most of the problems because Chomsky refused to abandon the idea of deep structure, which is at the
heart of T-G grammar but which also underlies nearly all of its problems. Such complaints have fuelled the
paradigm shift to cognitive grammar.” TGG is all about the deep structure which is a phrase-structure in mind and
the transformational generative rules like pronunciation, addition of words, etc. which helps to generate the
hidden phrase-structure of a sentence into a new surface-phrase structure of a sentence