Generative Grammar

Generative Grammar

Generative grammar, a precisely formulated set of rules whose output is all (and only) the sentences of a language—i.e., of the language that it generates. There are many different kinds of generative grammar, including transformational grammar as developed by Noam Chomsky from the mid-1950s. Linguists have disagreed as to which, if any, of these different kinds of generative grammar serves as the best model for the description of natural languages.

Generative grammars do not merely distinguish the grammatical sentence of a language from ungrammatical sequences of words of the same language; they also provide a structural description, or syntactic analysis, for each of the grammatical sentences. The structural descriptions provided by a generative grammar are comparable with, but more precisely formulated than, the analyses that result from the traditional practice of parsing sentences in terms of the parts of speech.

 (Source - Britannica Encyclopaedia)

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Universal Grammar

Universal Grammar

Universal grammar, theory proposing that humans possess innate faculties related to the acquisition of language. The definition of universal grammar has evolved considerably since first it was postulated and, moreover, since the 1940s, when it became a specific object of modern linguistic research. It is associated with work in generative grammar, and it is based on the idea that certain aspects of syntactic structure are universal. Universal grammar consists of a set of atomic grammatical categories and relations that are the building blocks of the particular grammars of all human languages, over which syntactic structures and constraints on those structures are defined. A universal grammar would suggest that all languages possess the same set of categories and relations and that in order to communicate through language, speakers make infinite use of finite means, an idea that Wilhelm von Humboldt suggested in the 1830s. From this perspective, a grammar must contain a finite system of rules that generates infinitely many deep and surface structures, appropriately related. It must also contain rules that relate these abstract structures to certain representations of sound and meaning—representations that, presumably, are constituted of elements that belong to universal phonetics and universal semantics, respectively.

This concept of grammatical structure is an elaboration of Humboldt’s ideas but harkens back to earlier efforts. Noam Chomsky, a leading figure in modern development of the idea of universal grammar, identifies precursors in the writings of Panini, Plato, and both rationalist and romantic philosophers, such as René Descartes (1647), Claude Favre de Vaugelas (1647), César Chesneau DuMarsais (1729), Denis Diderot (1751), James Beattie (1788), and Humboldt (1836). Chomsky focuses in particular on early efforts by the 17th-century Port Royal grammarians, whose rationalist approach to language and language universals was based on the idea that humans in the “civilized world” share a common thought structure. Moreover, he traces the conception of linguistic structure that marked the origins of modern syntactic theory to Lancelot and Arnauld’s 1660 Port Royal work, Grammaire générale et raisonnée, which postulated a link between the natural order of thought and the ordering of words.

 (Source - Britannica Encyclopaedia)

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UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR

Transformational Grammar

Transformational Grammar

Transformational grammar, also called Transformational-generative Grammar, 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 (some of which are called transformations) to express these relationships. 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.”

The most widely discussed theory of transformational grammar was proposed by U.S. linguist Noam Chomsky in 1957. His work contradicted earlier tenets of structuralism by rejecting the notion that every language is unique. The use of transformational grammar in language analysis assumes a certain number of formal and substantive universals.

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 (Source - Britannica Encyclopaedia)