Generative Grammar Theory

Syntax

Presented to:
Dr. Summaira Sarfraz

Presented by:
Maha Hijab Sikandar 18L-1704
Nadia Neelam 18L-1710
Faiza Mushtaq 18L-1709
Manal Javaid 18L-1724
Zareen Sahar 18L-1708

FAST-National University of Computer and Emerging

Sciences, Lahore
Introduction

Grammar is a word that confuses considerably. It has been approached and defined

differently by different scholars and schools of linguistics. Etymologically, the term Grammar

goes back (through French & Latin) to Greek word Grammatika or Grammatkia which may be

translated as the art of writing. But for a long time, this term has been used very closely to

incorporate the whole study of language.

History

Chomsky refers to this ability as the "creative aspect" of language. His first book,

Syntactic Structures, published in 1957, outlines his system of transformational grammar.

This grammar consists of surface structures - the sounds and words in a sentence - and deep

structures that contain the meaning of the sentence. He believed that humans are born with an

innate ability to learn languages. According to Chomsky's theory, the basic structures of

language are already encoded in the human brain at birth. This “universal grammar theory”

suggests that every language has some of the same laws.

Types of grammar

 Case grammar.

 Cognitive grammar.

 Construction grammar.

 Generative grammar.

 Lexical-functional grammar (LFG)

 Mental grammar.
 Theoretical grammar.

 Transformational grammar.

Generative Grammar

Generative grammar defined as a description in the form of a set of rules for producing

the grammatical sentence of a language. The idea of generative grammar was definitely

articulated by Noam Chomsky in syntactic structures (1957). The generative grammar’s task is

ideally not just to define the interrelation of elements in a particular language but also to

characterize universal grammar that is the set of rules and principles intrinsic to all natural

language, which are thought to be innate of the human intellect.

Example

 He plays hockey.

 He plays football.

 He plays cricket.

In generative grammar, the first part remain same but the last part generate and create new

sentences. Below the given example explain the deep structure of sentence.
Difference between generative and Transformational grammar

Generative Grammar is any model of grammar that generates well-formed sentences of

the language. Whereas in Transformational Grammar, the patterns of language are formalized

using rules to generate basic phrase structures and transformations to relate these to complex

surface structures.

History of Transformational Grammar

In the 1950s the school of linguistic thought known as transformational-generative

grammar received wide acclaim through the works of Noam Chomsky. Chomsky postulated a

syntactic base of language called deep structure, which consists of a series of phrase-structure

rewrite rules, i.e., a series of rules that generates the underlying phrase-structure of a sentence,

and a series of rules called transformations that act upon the phrase-structure to form more

complex sentences. The end result of a transformational generative grammar is a surface

structure that, after the addition of words and pronunciations, is identical to an actual sentence of

a language (Babby, 2012).

All languages have the same deep structure, but they differ from each other in surface

structure because of the application of different rules for transformations, pronunciation, and

word insertion. Another important distinction made in transformational generative grammar is

the difference between language competence (the subconscious control of a linguistic system)

and language performance (the speaker's actual use of language). Although the first work done in

transformational generative grammar was syntactic, later studies applied the theory to the

phonological and semantic components of language (Lakoff, & Ross, 1976).

Transformational grammar

In linguistics, transformational grammar (TG) or transformational generative

grammar (TGG) is part of the theory of generative grammar, especially of natural languages. It

considers grammar to be a system of rules that generate exactly those combinations of words that

form grammatical sentences in a given language and involves the use of defined operations

called transformations to produce new sentences from existing ones. It is a system

of language analysis that recognizes the relationship among the various elements of

a sentence and among the possible sentences of a language and uses, processes or rules to

express these relationships (Ouhalla, 1999).

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” i.e., in their deeper relations to one another, the sentences are very similar.

Transformational grammar assigns a “deep structure” and a “surface structure” to show the

relationship of such sentences. Thus, ‘I know a man who flies planes’ can be considered 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’.

Surface Structures and Deep Structures

When it comes to syntax, Noam Chomsky is famous for proposing that beneath every

sentence in the mind of a speaker is an invisible, inaudible deep structure, the interface to

the mental lexicon. The deep structure is converted by transformational rules into a surface

structure that corresponds more closely to what is pronounced and heard. The rationale is that

certain constructions, if they were listed in the mind as surface structures, would have to be

multiplied out in thousands of redundant variations that would have to have been learned one by

one, whereas if the constructions were listed as deep structures, they would be simple, few in

number, and economically learned (Layton, & Simpson, 1975).

Government and Binding Theory (GB, GBT)

History

In 1980s, Chomsky modified s syntactic theory called Government Binding Theory which is now

widely used by linguistics all around the world. GB was the first theory which is based on the

principles and parameters model of language, which also underlies the later developments of the

minimalist program.

Definition

Government and binding (GB, GBT)

Government and binding (GB, GBT) is a theory of syntax and a phrase structure grammar in the

tradition of transformational grammar developed principally by Noam Chomsky in the 1980s

 Sub theories
Government Binding

 It concerns the application of  The manner of which anaphors,

grammatical case (a grammatical pronouns and other pro-forms

category that shows the relationship are distributed

In other words, GBT describes the conditions and structural relations between nouns.

Nouns involved

3. Re- expressions:
1. Anaphors: 2. Pronouns:
myself, i. Proper names
I, you, me,
herself, (Harry, Peter, Ali, etc)
him, she,
himself, her, etc Common nouns (cat,
itself, etc. tree, phone, etc)

Principles of Binding Theory:

• Binding is used, along with particular binding principles, to explain the ungrammaticality

of statements. The applicable rules are called

• Binding Principle A,

• Binding Principle B, and

• Binding Principle C.

An anaphora must be bound in its binding domain/ Principle A

the same clause as its antecedent.

• E.g. John(i) sees himself (i).

They are co- indexed/ connected with (i) and

therefore the anaphora “himself” is referred to

John. In other words the anaphora needs to attach

itself to something within the binding domain for it

to have meaning.
A pronoun must be free in its binding domain/
Principle B
the same clauses as its antecedent

 E.g. John (i) sees him (j).

They are NOT connected with the same indexation

(i)=/= (j) and therefore, the pronoun “him” is referred

to someone else and not John.

An R-expression must be free (i.e., not bound). Principle C

E.g. John (i) told Mary (j) that he (i) was tired.

John does not need to be bounded to anything in

order to have a meaning, although "he" is bound to

it same applies to Mary. This is because John and

Mary already has a meaning in the real world,

outside of this sentence. However, "he" needs to be

bound to its antecedent John in order to have a

meaning.
 Learning about GBT will help you to…..

Be aware of the
Explore the internal
modified rules and
development system
Interpret many using the rules from
of language from the
language GBT will ease
perspective of
phenomenon in everything since there
cognitive due to the
order to are not many of rule
emphasis on
understand the systems as Chomsky
universal grammar
language nature. proposed to limit the
systems of
types of rules in GBT.
principles.

GBT

Although this theory has it's own limitation as well whereby it still contains many rules

even after the modification and it disregards language's social function, knowing about the rule

system helps us understand what makes sentences and paragraphs clear and interesting and

precise.

Head Driven Phrase Structure Grammar

Definition

Head phrase structure grammar was introduced by ivan sag and carl pollard in the mid 80’s.

Linguistic objects are represented through symbols so it is a grammar of signs. In head phrase
structure grammar, data in the form of phonology, syntax and semiology is transferred into

formal language by featuring and categorising the linguistic objects.

So while dealing this type of universal grammar there is the requirement of;

 linguistics signs

 Combination principles

Main features

1. In HPSG linguistic object consists of values and features.

2. Similar structure of linguistic objects emphasize the idea of uncertainty that feartures of the

objects are alike.

3. Complex description of the head will be represented by the valence information that would

be given in the list.

4. So these several types in HPSG leads to classification of the linguistic objects

Framework

In HPSG features are considered as models and these features are translated as attributes.

There are values in the form of pair in attribute value matrix.

This value describes the worth and frequency of object. The structure of a feature contains a

specific type and lastly these types are in ordered form. (there is a particular hierarchy of these

types).

These hierarchies would have the most general type at their top; while the most specific would

be at the bottom.

Attribute Value Matrice- AVM

AVM’S Translation

Attribute value matrix for the word ‘walks’. Categorical information of the verb would

divide into features that describes it, HEAD, and the feature that will describe the argument, it

will be called VALENCE. Walk is a symbol and it’s a type word and its head word is

represented by verb. This is an intransitive verb as it does not need any object and moreover, it

does not have complement. It has third person singular noun. Hence, the semantic value of the

subject is co-related with the only verb’s argument (means the individual is walking).
Example 1
Example 2

Example 3
Example 4

Conclusion

Functional theories of grammar belong to structural and humanistic linguistics. They take

into account the context where linguistic elements are used and studies the ways in which they

can be used productively. There are different grammar theories that are being described in this

paper. In Generative grammar theory and transformational theory patterns of the language are

formalized using rules to generate basic phrase structure and transformations to relate these too

difficult surface structures. Government and binding theory Noam Chomsky modified syntactic

theory; this theory depends on the rules and parameters of model of language. This theory relates

to the application of grammar case that shows the relationship of a noun and a pronoun in a

similar sentence. There is another approach to syntax where terminal nodes of syntactic parse

tress are somehow reduced to the smaller units, even smaller than morpheme. Each unit is further

irreducible and it does not require any further tree. There is Arc pair theory, is the extended

version of relational grammar. It primarily builds upon the relational grammar and it has also
used the formally stated concepts from model theory and graph theory. This means that

functional theories of grammar tend to pay attention to the way language is actually used in

communicative context.
References

Babby, L. H. (2012). A transformational grammar of Russian adjectives (Vol. 235). Walter de

Gruyter.

Chomsky, Noam (1993) [1981]. Lectures on Government and Binding: The Pisa Lectures.

Mouton de Gruyter.

Chomsky, Noam (2005). "Three Factors in Language Design" (PDF). Linguistic

Inquiry. 36 (36): 1–22. doi:10.1162/0024389052993655. see "Minimality" in Haegeman

1994:163f.

Grammar, H. D. P. S. (2015). Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG).

Layton, P., & Simpson, A. J. (1975). Surface and deep structure in sentence

comprehension. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 14(6), 658-664.

Levine, R. D., & Meurers, W. D. (2006). Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar: Linguistic

approach, formal foundations, and computational realization. Encyclopedia of language

and linguistics, 2.

Lakoff, G., & Ross, J. R. (1976). Is deep structure necessary?. In Notes from the linguistic

underground (pp. 159-164). Brill.

Monachesi, P. (2001). Head-driven phrase structure grammar and the interfaces. ESSLLI course

materials, University of Helsinki. [Link] helsinki. fi/esslli/courses/HDPSGaI. html.

Pollard, C., & Sag, I. A. (1994). Head-driven phrase structure grammar. University of Chicago

Press.

Ouhalla, J. (1999). Introducing transformational grammar: From principles and parameters to

minimalism.