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Transformational Generative Grammar

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Minu George Vettamala
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75 views9 pages

Transformational Generative Grammar

Uploaded by

Minu George Vettamala
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Transformational

Generative Grammar
MINU V.
TG Grammar

 Transformational Generative Grammar had its first exponent in Noam


Chomsky, an American linguist.
 In his book Syntactic Structures (1957) and later in Aspects of the
Theory of Syntax (1965), Chomsky tried to answer several questions
left unanswered by the structuralists.
Structuralism- Inadequacies

 Structuralism is corpus bound- it analyses the data of a given corpus by inductive methods. Chomsky
takes a deductive approach in building a theoretical account of grammar.
 There is a mental reality underlying linguistic behaviour; language use is a creative process, not a mere
habit formation.
 The description of a language is primarily concerned with a speaker’s knowledge of his language, that
is, his linguistic competence rather than performance.
 The grammar of a language is not a mere classification of the actual sentences produced by the native
speakers, but a system of rules and principles internalized by the native speaker from his exposure to
the language.
 TGG attempts to explain how the competence of a native speaker of a language can enable that
speaker to produce an infinite number of sentences from a finite set. The native speaker produces
grammatical and meaningful sentences.
 Structuralism took into account the form and TG grammar considers the relation between form and
meaning as crucial in the generation of sentences that are both grammatical and meaningful.
Deep Structure and Surface Structure

 An adequate grammar must provide for the facts of the language that is productive, complex and arbitrary.
 It must establish the relationship of various sentences and account for the deep and surface structure of sentences.
 TG grammar shows the functions of various parts of a sentence and shows their inter-relatedness.
 Moreover it shows the relationship between sentences.
 It takes up the basic or kernel sentence first. A kernel sentence is simple, assertive declarative and active in form.
 John is playing football.
 I wrote a letter.
 You spoke the truth

 Non-Kernel sentences
Is John playing football? (Interrogative)
John is not playing football (negative)
A letter was written by me. (passive)
You spoke the truth when you were forced. (complex)
You spoke the truth but told a new story. (compound)
Transformational and Generative
Elements

 As the name implies, TG grammar is both transformational and


generative.
 The kernel sentence comprises the deep structure of any utterance.
 To this deep structure a number of transformational rules are applied,
thus generating an infinite number of sentences by virtue of the
linguistic competence of the native speaker.
 Thus a sentence like: Where did you go yesterday? Can be derived from
the kernel sentence: You went somewhere yesterday by applying
certain transformations. The end product, after transformations is the
surface structure of the sentence.
Ambiguities

 Transformational analysis not only shows the inter-relatedness of


sentences but also explains the ambiguities between sentences that
appear identical, but are transforms from different kernels.
 Flying planes can be dangerous- an ambiguous sentence. The
ambiguity can be traced to two different set of kernels.
 Some people fly planes. This can be dangerous.
 Planes fly. They can be dangerous.
How TG works

1. A kernel sentence is first analyzed with the phrase structure rules and
written in a string.
2. Then the transformational rules are applied to arrive at a surface
structure.
3. Morphophonemic rules are applied to substitute labels for real words.
Example

 Surface structure: Is he sleeping?


 Kernal sentence: He is sleeping.
 Analysis: He-pres-be-ing-sleep.
 Interrogative rule: pres-be-he-ing-sleep.
 Affix switch: be- pres- he-sleep-ing.
 Morphophonemic rules: Is he sleeping?
Generative Grammar

 Formally, a generative grammar is defined as one that is fully explicit; it


is a finite set of rules that can be applied to generate all those and only
those sentences that are grammatical and meaningful in a given
language.

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