Mohamed Khider University, Biskra

Faculty of Arts and Languages Department of English

Course: linguistics Semester One
Level: second year
Teacher: Dr. SAIHI H.
Unit three: Contemporary approaches to linguistics
Lesson 09: Transformational Generative Grammar

1. Who is Chomsky?
Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American linguist,
philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political
activist. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is
also a major figure in analytic philosophy and one of the founders of the
field of cognitive science.

2. What is TGG?

Transformational-generative Grammar is a system of language analysis of the

relationship between sentence elements and its possible sentences of a language
and rules (i.e. transformations). TGG is a theory of grammar that provides a
model for the description of all languages. It was introduced by Noam Chomsky,
and accompanied by the publication of his book Syntactic Structures in 1957 (the
classical theory). Chomsky’s early work falls into two related points:
1. Criticism of structuralism
2. New formulation of linguistic theory

e.g.
1. The two sentences appear to be very
- active sentence “Ahmed ate the cake” different on the surface, TGG tries to
- corresponding passive, “The cake was eaten by Ahmed.” show that in the “underlying structure”
2. ( deeper relations to one another), the
- Samir saw Meriem is related to questions, sentences are very similar.
- “Whom [or who] did Samir see?” and “Who saw Meriem?”

Transformational grammar suggests a “deep structure” and a “surface structure” for the
relationship of such sentences.

For example, “I know a man who flies planes” is the surface form of a deep structure
approximately like “I know a man. The man flies airplanes.”
The notion of deep structure can be especially helpful in
explaining ambiguous utterances; e.g., “Flying airplanes can be dangerous” may have a deep structure,
or meaning, like “Airplanes can be dangerous when they fly” or “To fly airplanes can be dangerous.”

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 3. Key concepts in TGG
Criticism of structuralism was the main foundation of transformational generative grammar which brought new
concepts and methodology for the language studies.

competence &
performance

new definition deep structure

of language & surface
and grammar structure

language mentalist view

universals of language

1. COMPETENCE & PERFORMANCE

Chomsky separates competence and performance; he describes 'competence' as an idealized capacity that is
located as a psychological or mental property or function and ‘performance’ as the production of actual
utterances. According to Chomsky (1965) “We thus make a fundamental distinction between competence (the
speaker-hearer's knowledge of his language) and performance (the actual use of language in concrete
situations).” (p4)

2. DEEP STRUCTURE & SURFACE STRUCTURE

Any grammatical analysis can be divided into two parts, one of which is about the superficial or
Grammatical
apparentanalysis can be
structure ofdivided into the
sentences, twoother
parts:about the sentences' underlying structure. For example, we
1. can
onetake
is about the superficial
the following pair ofor apparent John
sentences: structure of to
is easy sentences,
please. John is eager to please. Syntactically
2. The other about the sentences' underlying structure.
both these sentences seem to be alike but they are not so. Considering the meaning implied in these
For example, we can take the following pair of sentences:
sentences, we find that the function of John is that of subject in one case and that of object in the
John is easy to please. (object) John is eager to please. (John is subject)
other.
Both these sentences have identical surface structures but but
Both these sentences have identical surface structures different
different deep deep structures.
structures. TheThe
surface
surface structure
structure is actually
is actually producedproduced structure.
structure. It refers
It refers to the sentence
to the sentence as it is as it is pronounced
pronounced or written. The
ordeep structure
written. is the
The deep abstractisstructure
structure that structure
the abstract allows thethat
native speaker
allows the of a language
native speakertoof
know what the
a language to
know what the sentence means. It may then be said that the deep structure expresses the semantic a
sentence means. It may then be said that the deep structure expresses the semantic contents of
sentence, whereas the surface structure of a sentence determines its phonetic form.
contents of a sentence, whereas the surface structure of a sentence determines its phonetic form.

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 3. MENTALIST VIEW OF LANGUAGE

The mentalists school of thought, which is led by Noam Chomsky, claim that a child learns his first language
through cognitive learning by natural exposure. Both ‘nature’ and ‘nurture’ influence the acquisition of
language in children. Chomsky regards linguistics as a subfield of psychology, more especially the cognitive
psychology.

The Language Acquisition Device (LAD)

Chomsky argues that language is so complex that it is almost incredible that it can be acquired by a
child in a short time. He further says that a child is born with some innate mental capacity which
helps the child to process all the language which he hears. This is called the “Language Acquisition
Device” (LAD).

4. LINGUISTIC UNIVERSAL
A linguistic universal is a pattern that occurs systematically across natural languages, potentially true for all
of them. For example, All languages have nouns and verbs, or If a language is spoken, it
has consonants and vowels. Research in this area of linguistics is closely tied to the study of linguistic
typology, and intends to reveal generalizations across languages, likely tied to cognition, perception, or other
abilities of the mind. Noam Chomsky's proposal of a Universal Grammar was largely pioneered by the
linguist Joseph Greenberg, who derived a set of forty-five basic universals, mostly dealing with syntax, from
a study of some thirty languages.

5. NEW DEFINITIONS OF LANGUAGE AND GRAMMAR ACCORDING TO N. CHOMSKY

1. Language as conceived of by Chomsky is “a set (finite or infinite) of sentences, each finite in length
and constructed out of a finite set of elements” (Chomsky 1957:13). As he further claims, this holds
true for all natural languages since they have “a finite number of phonemes (or letters in its alphabet)
and each sentence is representable as a finite sequence of these phonemes (or letters)” (Chomsky
1957:13).
2. Thus, a grammar of a language should be thought of as “a device of some sort for producing the
sentences of the language under analysis” (Chomsky 1957:13). Such a linguistic analysis of a language
should attempt to sort out the grammatical sentences from the ungrammatical ones and study the
structure of the grammatical sentences. Furthermore, the grammar of a language will generate all the
grammatical sentences of a language and none of the ungrammatical ones.