Language and its components

1. By: MIMOUN SEHIBI

2.  Introduction
 Universal grammar
 Gennerative grammar
 Properties of generative grammar
 Generative defined
 Transformatinal rules defined
 Grammar
 Deep and surface stucture
 Structual ambiguity
 Labeled Tree diagrams
 Phrase structure rules
 Recursion
 Transformational rules
 conclusion

3.  In the 1957 Avram Noam Chomsky published
syntactic stuctures which turned out to be a landmark
in the 20th centuries linguistics
 Chomsky put forward a grammar of language called
`generative transformatinal grammar which differ
fundamentally from behaviourism and structualism of
the first-half of the 20th century
 He regards language faculty as a language organ
 He wants linguistics to be a real science

4.  All human languages are structured in a remarkably
similar ways
 Another remarkable fact about language is the
apparent ease and speed with which children acquire
it
 Chomsky believes that grammar is hard-wired in our
brains

5.  It has a very explicit system of rules
specifying what combinations of basic
elements would result in a well-formed
sentences
 This explicit system of rules resembles
the type of rules found in mathematics

6.  it generates all the well-formed syntactic structures of language
and it fails to generate any ill-formed structures (this is the all
and the only criterion)
 The grammar will have a finite number of rules,but will be
capable of generating an infinite number of well-formed
structures
 the rules need the crusial property of recursion
 it should be able of revealing the basis of tow other
phenomena,first how some superficially distinct sentences are
closely related and second how some superficially similar
sentences are in fact distinct

7.  It is defined as model of scientific representation of
such linguistic knowledge.i,e. it`s a formal and explicit
characterization of what a native speaker know

8.  Oxford dictionary defines generative as able to
produce or productive
 Technically generative is used to mean a rule acting as
base for element for a given set,linguistic rules are
generative because it represents the knowledge of
native speakers to produce sentences
 It is a process by which one constituent,such as a word
or a phrase is adjoined or attached to another to form
an extended constituent

9.  It emphasized the reletionships among sentences that can be
seen as transforms or transformations of each other for example
among simple active declarative and negative … ect sentences
 It allows the speaker to convert basic kernel sentences into more
elaborated dirived sentences as well as to arrange the element of
the sentence into an acceptable form (well-formed sentences)
 It serves to link deep stucture to the surface structure
 It aims to to offer a logical,complete and self-consistent
explanation of competence

10.  Transformational grammar have tow kind of rules: those which
specify how words should be combined to form sentences or
phrases (phrase-structure rules)and those which specify how a
sentence of one type can be converted into sentences of different
type
 For example : phrase structure rules would construct the
sentence Teresa hit the ball
 Chomsky showed that a transformational grammar was more
efficient,since many sentences could be formed from other
sentences using transformational rules .This not only made the
phrase-structure rules more simple,but captured the fact that
certain sentences (active/passive) seem to be related to each
other

11.  Tow superficially distinct sentences stuctures would
for example Charlie broke the window and the window
was broken by Charlie( traditionally: active/passive)
 this difference in superficial form disguises the fact
that the tow sentences are closely related.
 The deep structure is an abstract level of structual
interpretation in other words the absract inderlying
interpretation of a sentence

12.  A sentence has tow underlying interpretation which
could be expressed in the deep structure ( sentences)
 Phrases can also be stuctually ambigious
 Grammar will have to be capable of showing the
structural distinction between these underlying
representations

13.  Abbrivations for the grammatical categories involeved
which are commomly used
 N= noun
 Art =article
 S = sentences
 Adv =adverb
 Pro =pronoun
 Prep = preposition
 Pp =prepositional phrase
 Vp =verbal phrase

14. .This structure it could be presented in a form of tree diagram
which is also known as (tree structure,or phrase marker).
.We consider ways of describing the structure of the sentence
that basically constructed on the linear sequence of the
constituent it is ,of course possible to show the same
sequence in a more explicit way,hierarchically organized.
.For example: the structure of the sentence John like ripe
mangoes

15.  Traditionally the tree diagram was treated as a static
representation of the structure of the sentence however
alternative is to treat the diagram as a dynamic format
in a sense that it represents a way of genereting not
only that one sentence,but a very large number of
sentences with similar structure with only a small
number of rules.

16.  The phrase structure rules (as presented),have no
recursive elements.Each time we remote a symbole
from the left.we did not include it on the right side of
any arrow
 We have to be able to repeat some symbols on the right
side of the arrow,this is the essence of recursion

17. See these sentences:
1- George helped Mary yesterday
2-yesteray George helped Mary
And:
1- Doobie picked up the magazine
2-Doobie picked the magazine up

18.  Chomsky`s revolution came against the short comings of
structualism because it concentrated too much on data and
failed to proceed from the known and unknown and it
feared theoretical intangibles
 TG model recognized the value of theory and the
significance of what was going on the beneath the surface
 As any theory TG model was not free from limitations since
it focused on idealize competence and it ignored
performance

19. Thank you

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 Chomsky,N,2000 .The Architecture of Language,Saurabh
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Structure, Interaction, and Variation. 2nd Ed. Ann Arbor,
MI. University of Michigan Press.
 Parker, F. & Riley, K. 2010. Linguistics for Non-Linguists .
5th Ed. Boston, MA. Pearson/Allen and Bacon.
 Fromkin, V., Rodman, R. & Hyams, N. 2007. An
Introduction to Language . 8th Ed. Boston, MA. Thompson.