1. TRANSFORMATIONAL GRAMMAR An introduction

2. LINGUISTICS Linguistics Traditional Before 1930 Structural 40s -50s Transformational ((Chomsky 1957

3. TRADITIONAL GRAMMAR  Grammarians subjected the English language to the rules of classical languages Latin & Greek.  Examples: 1. A sentence should never end in a preposition. When it doesn’t apply to English: This is the bank I invested my money in. 1. May I have a cookie? NOT Can I have a cookie?

4. TRANSFORMATIONAL GENERATIVE LINGUISTICS  Sentences are generated by a (subconscious) set of procedures.  It is part of the mind ability.  The goal is ….. To figure out what we (subconsciously) know……. A theory of the linguistic intuition (unconscious knowledge) of a native speaker.

5. How do they analyze language? 1. Observe data 2. Generalize rules. 3. Develop hypotheses. 4. Test sentences on native speakers. 5. If their judgments agree with the grammaticality rules then the hypothesis is supported. (grammaticality judgments)

6. Which sentences do not sound right?  The boy found the ball  The boy found quickly  The boy found in the house  The boy found the ball in the house  Grammaticality judgments are determined by rules that are shared by the speakers of a language. They do not depend on whether the sentence has meaning or not:  Colourless green ideas sleep furiously.  It doesn’t mean anything but it sounds like an English sentence.??

7. GENERATIVE GRAMMAR RULES  Older schools of grammar:  PERSCRIPTIVE RULES: perscribe how people ‘should’ produce language.  The ‘rules’ in TG do not tell us how to produce language> They tell us the ‘ORDER’ in which to put words and phrases.  DESCRIPTIVE RULES: Describes how people produce language.

8. GENERATIVE?  Because they allow us to generate an infinite number of sentences.

9. TRANSFORMATIONAL GRAMMAR MODEL OF LANGUAGE Phrase structure Lexical component Deep structure Transformations Surface structure Morphophonemic rules Sentence

10. PARAPHRASE & AMBIGUITY  Paraphrase  When several surface structures relate to one deep structure. 1. John bought the book from Mary. 2. Mary sold the book to John. 3. The book was sold to John by Mary.  Ambiguity  One surface structure relating to several deep structures.  Flying planes can be dangerous. 1. To fly planes. 2. Planes which are flying.