3. WHAT IS GRAMMAR?
Grammar is the set of structural rules governing the
composition of clauses, phrases, and words in any
given natural language. The term refers also to the
study of such rules, and this field includes
morphology, syntax, and phonology, often
complemented by phonetics, semantics, and
pragmatics.
4. Introduced in 1957 by Noam Chomsky, his
idea of generative-transformational grammar
revolutionized the field. Although his current
linguistic theories are quite different, we can't
talk about linguistics today without
looking at Chomsky's generative-
transformational grammar. Chomsky's
theory offers math-based rules that we can
use to visually illustrate how speakers of
English -- and all languages -- put sentences
together.
5. Beginning in 1957, Chomsky introduced two central ideas
relevant to grammatical theories. The first was the distinction
between competence and performance. Central to his theory
was explanation of knowledge that underlies the human ability
to speak and understand. One of the most important of his
ideas is that most of this knowledge is innate, with the result
that a baby is born wired to acquire language and needs only
actually learn the idiosyncratic features of the language's he or
she is exposed to. Perhaps more significantly, he made concrete
and technically sophisticated proposals about the
structure of language.
6. The second idea related directly to the evaluation of theories of grammar.
Generative transformational grammar tries to explain language creativity:
how we are able to utter and interpret sentences we have not heard before.
Creativity is made possible by the generative nature of transformational
grammar. In order to create and understand newly generated sentences, we
must depend on our language competence. Our competence derives from our
knowledge of grammar: grammar shapes each of our utterances, setting the
boundaries for what is acceptable and ensuring that we will be understood.
We compose and structure each of our utterances based on our knowledge of
what is acceptable according to the grammatical systems
7.
8. According to this theory, you can take a sentence and mathematically
divide it into parts.
Chomsky explains that phrase structure rules are are basically
"rewriting" rules. For instance, a sentence can be rewritten as a noun
phrase plus a verb phrase. In the notation of transformational grammar,
this rule is written as:
S --> NP + VP "a sentence consists of a noun phrase followed by a
verb phrase“.
A sentence can be further illustrated by a phrase structure tree, like
this:
Starting with this base, we can begin to build rules which will allow
us to generate an infinite number of sentences.
9. CONCLUSION
Thus phrase structure rules were formulated in order to construct unlimited sentences
with a small number of rules.
There is much more to generative-transformational grammar than we've covered in this
lesson, including displaying complex sentences and then taking the rules a step further to
form another set of rules, called transformational rules, which enable more flexibility and
to explain how statements can be transformed into questions or negations. In addition,
Noam Chomsky's theories are not without their critics. Still, all linguists owe a debt of
thanks to Chomsky for showing us how to illustrate how languages put sentences
together.
