Transformational Grammar

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Routledge Dictionary of Language and Linguistics

1 A generic term for any generative grammar which uses transformations.

2 In a narrower sense, the theory developed by N.Chomsky. The goal of this theory is to illustrate the implicit knowledge of language. based on current language use, by a system of explicit rules. Differing from the taxonomic structuralism of Harris, Bloomfield, and others, which is based on the segmentation and classification of concrete language data, Chomsky’s model refers to the ability of competent speakers and to the linguistic intuitions which a competent speaker can make explicit about his/her language. Historically, Chomsky belongs to the tradition of rationalism of Leibnitz and Descartes. By elaborating the concept of ‘innate ideas,’ Chomsky turns against the behaviorist approaches of the American structuralists and expands his theory to a theory of language acquisition. The development of competence is explained by the innate language acquisition device on the basis of grammar universals. Therefore the formulation of the theory takes precedence over the analysis of data, and transformational grammar proceeds deductively by laying down hypotheses about the linguistic generation mechanism, taking the creative aspects of linguistic ability into account. This is true of Chomsky’s first theory, which appeared in his 1957 book Syntactic structures: an infinite set of kernel sentences, produced by context-free phrase structure rules, forms the basis for the application of transformational rules, which ensure an infinite set of sentences by finite means. In the second phase of transformational grammar, documented in Chomsky’s Aspects of the theory of syntax in 1965, the original syntactic theory is expanded to a general theory of grammar which includes phonology and semantics. The following revisions are characteristic of the so-called ‘aspects model’ (also known as the standard theory, ST): the grammar, in the sense of a comprehensive linguistic theory, consists of a generative, syntactic component as well as interpretive, semantic, and phonological components. The basis of the syntax is the deep structure which is formed by context-free phrase structure rules and lexical rules. The context-free phrase structure rules guarantee recursiveness by self-embedded constructions; recursiveness was achieved by generalizing transformations in the earlier model. The deep structure contains all semantically relevant information at an abstract basic level of structure and is the point of departure for the semantic interpretation of sentences. The works of Katz in the area of interpretive semantics are relevant here. The corresponding surface structure is derived from meaning-neutral transformations such as deletion. The surface structure forms the basis for the phonological-phonetic representation. Criticism of this conception was, above all, based on the role of semantics, since the semantic interpretation of a sentence is dependent on surface structure phenomena such as intonation, word order, and the theme-rheme division. This led to the development of two competing approaches in the 1960s and 1970s: generative semantics and the extended standard theory. Revisions of the standard theory were instigated by Jackendoff (1972) and Chomsky (1972) and lie in a restriction on the range of transformations through universal constraints and in semantic interpretation, which refers to the deep structure and surface structure. Changes occurring since 1973 have led to the introduction of the term Revised Extended Standard theory (=REST), which differs from the extended standard theory in the following ways: (a) the exact delimiting and definition of the individual grammatical components, especially the strict division between syntax and semantics (as well as phonology, stylistics, and pragmatics); (b) the application of markedness theory, which was developed in phonology; (c) the reduction of transformations to structure-preserving transformations, especially move-α; (d) the universal formulation of constraints, which correspond to psychologically interpretable universals and which are specified by language-specific parameters; (e) the introduction of traces as abstract empty category nodes in the surface structure, which mark and make accessible the former position of transposed NP-constituents; (f) the semantic interpretation can only operate on a single level of the surface structure which encodes semantic information from deep structure. In Chomsky’s GB theory ( Government and Binding Theory), the term government takes on a central meaning; within core grammar, a strong modularization of the syntax is attempted; phenomena of individual languages are captured by suitable parameterization. ( also binding theory, empty category principle, logical form, governing category)

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The Linguistic Review.

constraints, filter, Government and Binding theory, interpretive semantics, logical form, morphology, phrase structure, trace theory, universal grammar

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