1 : modeling syntax

The dominant theory of syntax is due to Noam Chomsky and

his colleagues, starting in the mid 1950s it has had many
different names through its development (Transformational Grammar
(TG), Transformational Generative Grammar, Standard Theory,
Extended Standard Theory, Government and Binding Theory (GB),
Principles and Parameters approach (P&P) and Minimalism (MP)), but
it is often given the blanket name Generative Grammar.

References : Syntax: A Generative Introduction By Andrew

Carnielink

2 :NAOM CHOMSKY (quote)

Chomsky’s work on syntax led him to believe that language is innate,

that crucial parts of the human language ability are built into the brain
and are programmed into our genes. Chomsky believes
‘Language is a set (finite or infinite) of sentences, each
finite in length, and constructed out of a finite set of
elements’. Chomsky,Syntactic Structures (1957: 13).
So basically : A small set of rules operating on a large but finite set of
words, generates an infinite number of sentences

3 What Chomsky had noticed

As Lyons (1981, p.7) comments : this definition varied markedly from
previous definitions of language in its silence about both the
communicative function and the symbolic properties of language; it
instead focused on the essential structure of language in a way that
was mathematically precise.

Ref:Lyons, J. (1981). Language and linguistics: Cambridge

University Press.
Verbal Behavior (Skinner, 1957)

In 1959 Chomsky wrote a review of B. F. Skinner's attempt to account for language in behaviorist terms,

UG’s Debut as a Reaction

Before the 1960's most psychologists agreed upon BF Skinner's

language acquisition theory which explained language acquisition with
behaviorist principles

behaviorist approach was concerned with observable stimulus-response

behaviors, and states that all behaviors are learned through interaction with
the environment. and that if there's enough input and positive and negative
reinforcement then a child or a person will imitate and learn the language

But what Chomsky suggested is that language acquisition is not simply a

matter of stimulus and response and as a matter of fact when he observed
children he noted that they are constantly coming up with new ways of
saying things and if you correct a child a lot of times they will just keep
saying the phrase the wrong way . And the fact that they're not responding
to correction indicates that the behavioral strategy isn't quite enough

interestingly children eventually end up learning the basic structures of their

first language and it seems like it's something going on in their brain that
helps them to do that

so as children learn their first language, the language develops in a kind of

systematic way so chomskey emphasize that it must be some innate
structure or genetic component that helps them acquire language

Chomsky also used a more personal approach of common sense, he

argued that "humans are not genetically programmed to learn one or
another language" and that if he "brought up a Japanese baby in Boston it
would speak Boston English" and if he raised his own child in Japan it
"would speak Japanese," and vice versa, he used this basic truth to argue
that all languages must therefore share the same innate structure, and he
came up with the concept of universal grammar and suggests that all
human beings inherit a universal set of principles and parameters that
control and shape human languages
UG principle and paramaters

Chomsky’s concept of generative grammar implies a finite set of rules

that can be applied to generate sentences, at the same time capable
of producing infinite number of strings from the set rules.
Chomsky emphasize that The UG does not have the actual rules of
each language, but it has PRINCIPLES& PARAMETERS
The rules of language are derived from these Principles & parameters.

We can define Principles as : universal basic features of Grammar

e.g.. Nouns, Verbs & Structure Dependency etc.
And Parameters as : the variation across language that determines
one or more aspects of Grammar like for example the patterns or the
order in which SVO appears .
so the pattern in english is SVO and Japanese requires that all
sentences end with V, but it could be SOV or OSV
Parameters also determine the position of heads in phrases . Whether
a language is head-initial or head-final (i.e. English is head-initial,
whereas Japanese is head-final)
Principles and parameters was largely formulated by the linguists
Noam Chomsky and Howard Lasnik

Refer: Introducing Transformational Grammar: From Principles and

Parameters to Minimalism by Jamal Ouhalla
3- Let’s look at some examples

Languages like English and Malagasy like to put the verb first, whereas
language like Japanese and Turkish like to put it at the end.

So that’s the difference between “move to Tokyo” and tokyo nihikoso

The need for subject is another parameter . In French, if you want to

express your love for a music, you might say “J’aime la musique”.

“Aime la musique” doesn’t mean the same thing, But in Italian, “Amo la
musica” is totally okay. That’s because Italian just lets you drop the subject,
whereas French and English don’t

Syntactic Analysis

In Syntactic Structures (1957), Chomsky established the notion of

‘generative grammar’ that uses explicit ‘generative’ formal description and
‘rewrite rules’ to describe the structure of language. As Cook and Newson
(1996, p.2) explain, ‘kernel sentences’ were shown to undergo
transformations so as to produce different forms, such as the negative,
interrogative etc. In a later work, Chomsky continued examining how
identical surface forms could express different meanings, for example (cited
in Finch, 2000, p.121):
John is eager to please.
John is easy to please.
Chomsky’s solution was that underlying both sentences was a different
‘deep structure’, “an abstract level of structural organisation in which all the
elements determining structural interpretation are represented” (Yule,
2006, p.88).
This abstract deep structure is subject to a series of rules or
‘transformations’ that ‘generate’ the surface structure.

Ref : Cook, V.J. & Newson, M. (1996). Chomsky’s Universal Grammar: An

Introduction (2nd ed). Oxford: Blackwell.
Ref “ Finch, G. (2000). Linguistic terms and concepts. London: Macmillan.
Yule, G. (2006), The study of language (3rd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ps Kernel Sentence. -a simple, active, declarative sentence containing no modifiers or
connectives that may be used in making more elaborate sentences: The sentence "Good tests are
short" is made from two kernel sentences: (1) "Tests are short.

deep and surface stucture

The terms deep structure and surface structure were popularized in the
1960s and '70s by American linguist Noam Chomsky.

In recent years, notes Geoffrey Finch, "the terminology has

changed: 'Deep' and 'surface' structure have become 'D' and 'S' structure,
principally because the original terms seemed to imply some sort of
qualitative evaluation; 'deep' suggested 'profound,' whilst 'surface' was too
close to 'superficial.’

the principles of transformational grammar still remain very much alive in

contemporary linguistics"

deep structure
• is an abstract level of structural organization in which all the elements
determining structural interpretation are represented.

• Sentences that have alternative interpretations

• Sentences that have different surface forms but have the same
underlying meaning.
3 Surface structure

"The surface structure of a sentence is the final stage in the syntactic

representation of a sentence, which provides the input to the phonological

component of the grammar, and which thus most closely corresponds to the

structure of the sentence we articulate and hear. This two-level conception

of grammatical structure is still widely held, though it has been much
criticized in recent generative studies. An alternative conception is to relate
surface structure directly to a semantic level of representation, by passing
deep structure altogether. The term 'surface grammar' is sometimes used as
an informal term for the superficial properties of the sentence."

(David Crystal, A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics, 6th ed. Wiley, 2011)

2- Surface Structure Cues and Strategies

"The surface structure of the sentence often provides a number of obvious

cues to the underlying syntactic representation. One obvious approach is to
use these cues and a number of simple strategies that enable us to compute
the syntactic structure. The earliest detailed expositions of this idea were by
Bever (1970) and Fodor and Garrett (1967). These researchers detailed a
number of parsing strategies that used only syntactic cues. Perhaps the
simplest example is that when we see or hear a determiner such as 'the' or
'a,' we know a noun phrase has just started. A second example is based on
the observation that although word order is variable in English, and
transformations such as passivization can change it, the common structure
noun-verb-noun often maps on to what is called the canonical sentence
structure SVO (subject-verb-object). That is, in most sentences we hear or
read, the first noun is the subject, and the second one the object.
(Trevor A. Harley, The Psychology of Language: From Data to Theory, 4th ed.

Psychology Press, 2014)

4-

transformational grammar

Transformational grammar is an approach to the use of grammar in

communications that involves a logical and analytical process to fully grasp
the meaning behind the words selected. From this perspective, it goes
beyond the process of structural grammar, which tends to focus on the
proper construction of sentences as the device for communication. Along
with sentence structure, this type of grammar will also attempt to explore
the thought behind the words. Sometimes referred to as TG,
transformational grammar attempts to apply logic to the task of looking
into the deeper meanings of the structure of sentences, and to analyze
both the surface and the underlying intent of the words used.

This means employing more than just a visual approach to the words that
make up the sentence. Syntax also plays a role in the logical process of
transformational grammar, as will context. To a degree, this type of
grammar calls upon most of the tools of linguistics in an attempt to fully
analyze the spoken or written word. One of the main proponents of the
idea of transformational grammar was Noam Chomsky.

During the middle portion of the 20th century, Chomsky worked to

develop a logical approach to analyzing the syntax of structural grammar
within the setting of the English language. As a result of his efforts,
Chomsky developed and promoted the concept of grammar as being a
broader theory regarding language structure, rather than simply defining a
method for developing the structure for sentences. This approach had
been inherent for centuries in the broader concepts of universal grammar.

Ref : http://www.uh.edu/class/ university of houston

For example

For example, transformational grammar relates the active sentence “John

read the book” with its corresponding passive, “The book was read by John.”
The statement “George saw Mary” is related to the corresponding
questions, “Whom [or who] did George see?” and “Who saw Mary?”
Although sets such as these active and passive sentences appear to be very
different on the surface (i.e., in such things as word order), a
transformational grammar tries to show that in the “underlying structure”

What are the basic concepts of Transformational Grammar?

Transformational grammar which is usually generative grammar 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

Who is the architect of Transformational Grammar?

Transformational Grammar also known as Transformational Generative

Grammar (TGG) refers to the theory of generative grammar of a natural
language, developed by Chomsky. Transformational grammar is basically a
theory to understand the processing of grammatical knowledge in the
human brain. Noam Chomsky, the U.S. linguist, was the main propagator of
transformational grammar in the 1960’s. 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.

What is the use of Transformational Grammar?

Transformational grammar is used routinely to understand the grouping of

words in a particular context. For example look at the sentences, “John
wrote a poem on the spring season” and “A poem on the spring season was
written by John”. According to Chomsky these sentences originate from a
deeper and more abstract grammatical structure. Transformational
grammar explains how actual sentences evolve by manipulating the
common form of sentence structures. A number of different theories have
since evolved but they are all based on the Chomsky’s original theory of
transformational grammar

What is a Phrase Structure Tree in Transformational Grammar?

A phrase structure tree in transformational grammar is a diagrammatic

representation of sentences distinguished by their syntactic characteristics.
Thus we have verb phrases (VP), noun phrases (NP), prepositional phrases
(PP) and so on. Most of the sentence structures in a language are governed
by phrase structure rules. For example, sentences in English are governed by
the rule that they should contain a Noun Phrase (NP) and a Verb Phrase (VP)