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Generative Grammar Assignment

This document discusses generative grammar and its key concepts. It defines generative grammar as an approach to studying syntax that aims to predict which word combinations form grammatical sentences. The concept originated with Noam Chomsky in the late 1950s and opposed structuralism by proposing universal language principles. Various models of transformational grammar are then outlined, including Standard Theory, Extended Standard Theory, and the Minimalist Program. Strengths and weaknesses of generative grammar are also presented.

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Jiya Satti
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2K views

Generative Grammar Assignment

This document discusses generative grammar and its key concepts. It defines generative grammar as an approach to studying syntax that aims to predict which word combinations form grammatical sentences. The concept originated with Noam Chomsky in the late 1950s and opposed structuralism by proposing universal language principles. Various models of transformational grammar are then outlined, including Standard Theory, Extended Standard Theory, and the Minimalist Program. Strengths and weaknesses of generative grammar are also presented.

Uploaded by

Jiya Satti
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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ASSIGNMENT OF

GRAMMAR, SYNTAX AND SEMANTICS


GENERATIVE GRAMMAR

SUBMITTED BY: JAWERIA MANZOOR


SUBMITTED TO: DR. AYESHA
ROLL NO: 477
BILQUIS POST GRADUATE COLLEGE FOR WOMEN
RAWALPINDI

Generative Grammar:
Generative grammar refers to a particular approach to the study of syntax. It attempts to give a
set of rules that will correctly predict which combinations of words will form grammatical
sentences.

Concept of Generative Grammar:


The concept of generative grammar originates in the work of Noam Chomsky, beginning in the
late 1950s in US. His theory opposed the earlier theories of structuralism by rejecting the idea
that each language is different from the other. In fact transformational grammar analyses
language on the basis of certain universal tenets in languages. Further the Chomskyan tradition
has resulted in specific transformational grammar, influenced greatly by his Minimalist Program.
There is no agreement by Linguists on the kind of generative grammar that could be used as the
best model to describe natural languages.
Generative grammar sets forth the rules to recognize grammatical sentences in a language and
differentiate them from improper sequence of words or ungrammatical sentences in the same
language. Besides, Generative grammar outlines the syntactic analysis or structural description
for the grammatical sentences of the language which are more precise than the analysis of
traditional grammar in terms of parts of speech.
The rules of generative grammar focus on the different components of the language such as
syntax, semantics, phonology and morphology. The sentence is represented as a tree having
branches denoting the subordinate and super ordinate elements rather than just a sequence of
words.

Example:
The cat ate the mouse

NP

VP

NP

The

cat

Transformational

ate the

mouse

Grammar

related

to

Generative

grammar:
Transformational Grammar is looked upon as one of the approach to generative grammar which
describes a language with the help of transformational rules. It involves logical reasoning to
understand fully the meaning of the selected words. As such transformational grammar goes a
step ahead of structural grammar which focuses more on the sentence structures used for
communication. Apart from the use of correct sentence structure, transformational grammar
analyses the words with reference to its underlying thoughts. Transformational grammar employs
most of the linguistic tools such as syntax and context to explore the possible meanings of words.

Use of Generative Grammar:


Generative grammar is more of an attempt to formalize the implicit rules that a person uses while
speaking his native language. It is due to this inate language rules present I human beings that
enables them to learn their native language with minimum effort and time. The rules
of generative grammar may appear to be useful only in language studies but the truth is that they
have been successfully applied even in the studies on music. Notable musicians such
Schenkerian, Fred Lerdahl and Mark Steedman have used the ideas of generative grammar to
analyze studies in music theory.

Models of Transformational Grammar:


There are following models of transformational grammar.

Standard theory(1957-1965)
Extended Standard Theory(1965-1973)
Revised Extended Standard Theory(1973-1976)
Relational Grammar(1975-1990)
Government and Binding Principles
Minimalist Program(1990-Present)

Standard Theory (1957-1965):


It corresponds to the original model of generative grammar laid out by Chomsky (1965). A
core aspect of Standard Theory is a distinction between two different representation of a
sentence, called Deep structure and Surface Structure. The two representations are linked
to each other by transformational grammar.
Surface Structure corresponds to the version of a sentence that can be spoken or heard. Surface
structures are derived from deep structure by a series of transformations.
Example:
The dog bit the cat.

(Deep Structure)

The cat was bitten by the dog. (Surface Structure)

Where an optional transformation called passive had applied.

Extended Standard Theory (1965-1973):


Its features are:

Syntactic constraints
Generalized phrase structures (X-bar theory)

Revised Extended Standard Theory (1973-1976):


It is a strict delimitation of the different grammatical components, that is syntax, semantics, as
well as phonology, stylistics and pragmatics.

Relational Grammar (1975-1990):


In

linguistics, Relational

Grammar (RG)

is

syntactic

theory

which

argues

that

primitive grammatical relations provide the ideal means to state syntactic rules in universal terms
An alternative model of syntax based on the idea that notions like Subject, Direct Object, and
Indirect Object play a primary role in grammar.
In Relational Grammar, constituents that serve as the arguments to predicates are numbered. This
numbering system corresponds loosely to the notions of subject, direct object and indirect object.
The numbering scheme is (1)-subject, (2)- direct object, (3)- indirect object.

Example:
John gave Marry a kiss.
S

IO

DO

Government and Binding Principles:

It is based on the principles and parameters theory, which states that there is a finite set of
fundamental principles common to all natural languages and a finite set of binary

parameters that determine the range of permissible variability in language, language

acquisition and language understanding.


Its main aim to find the principles and parameters common to all languages so that the

syntax of a particular language can be explained along these lines.


Binding theory poses locality conditions on certain processes and related items. The
central notion of government theory is the relation between the head of a construction and

categories dependent on it.


It is also concerned with relations of anaphors, pronoun, names and variables to possible
antecedents.

Minimalist Program (1990-Present):


In The Minimalist Program (1995), the latest step in the continuous development of
transformational generative grammar, Chomsky provided a radically new approach to the
implementations of his underlying ideas. The well-established concepts of Deep structure and
Surface structure have been discarded as well as government, the central element in GB-theory.
Even the ubiquitous phrase-structure rules have been eliminated from the theory to large degree.

Context-Free Grammar:
A context-free grammar is a set of recursive rewriting rules used to generate patterns of strings.

Example
The dog ate the bone.
S

NP

VP

D
The

dog

ate the

N
bone

Strength of Generative Grammar:

This grammar will generate well-formed syntactic structure (e.g. sentence) of the

language.
This grammar will have a finite number of rules but will be capable of generating an

infinite number of well-formed structures.


The rules of this grammar give recursiveness, that is the capacity to be applied more

than once in generating a structure.


This grammar is also capable of revealing the basis two other phenomena:
How some superficially distinct sentences are closely related.
How some superficially similar sentences are in fact distinct.

Weaknesses of Generative Grammar:

It is far from clear what contribution Generative- Transformational Grammar is likely to

make to language teaching methodology.


Many teachers of English as a Second Language assume that GenerativeTransformational Grammar is pedagogically inadaptable to the needs of a secondary

curriculum.
It means that it is not applicable to language teaching.

There are two important reasons:

The first reason is that the explication of the theory is directed more towards linguists,

psychologist and mathematicians than toward teachers of English.


The second reason is that the criticism of this theory by other linguists made the concepts
more complicated.

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