Phrase Structure Rules Must allow all and only the grammatical sentences in a language Descriptive rules, not necessarily prescriptive Each rule “rewrites” a constituent into one or more constituents

A Simple Set of Phrase Structure Rules S NP +VP NP art + (adj*) + N VP V + NP + (PP*) PP Prep + NP N sailor, cat, horse, bridge, V saluted, kissed, fried adj drunken, puzzled, gregarious art a, the prep on, under

From this simple set of rules we can generate many, many sentences, including : A cat saluted a horse. A cat saluted a horse on the bridge. A gregarious horse fried the cat. The drunken sailor saluted the puzzled cat. The puzzled, gregarious sailor on a horse saluted the drunken cat on the bridge.

Phrase Structure Tree: Derivation of a Sentence S NPVP artadj N V NP The drunken sailor saluted art adj N the puzzled cat

Sentences with ambiguous meanings have different phrase structure trees S NP VP adj N aux V adj Visiting relatives can be boring S NP VP Ger N aux V adj Visiting relatives can be boring

Transformational Rules Rules that transform deep structure into surface structure Apply to constituents not to individual words Involve movement, insertion, and deletion of constituents Conditions of occurrence: Transformations will not apply under all conditions

Some Transformations Particle-movement –“John called up the woman.” –“John called the woman up.” T1” V + part + NP  V + NP + part –John called up the interesting woman up. –John called the interesting woman up. –John called up the woman with the curly hair. –John called the woman with the curly hair up. –*John called the woman up with the curly hair.

Other Transformations Passive: –Arlene played the tuba. –The Tuba was played by Arlene. –T2 NP1 + V + NP2  NP2 + be +V + –en by + NP1 Wh- Question: Why is Arlene playing the tuba? Negation: Arlene is not playing the tuba? Compound: Arlene is playing the tuba and the drums.

Derivational Theory of Complexity If transformational grammar is how language is actually done, then –Untransformed sentences > transformed sentences –Simpler transformations > complex transformations –Should see this both in acquisition and in adult processing of sentences –But there are many exceptions to this prediction –Compound Sentences “The zoo has llamas and gnus” is derived from “The zoo has llamas and the zoo has gnus.”

Whence Transformational Grammar? Revolutionary approach to the study of language, though the specifics have not stood up well. Revised approaches include Parameter Setting (Chomsky, 1981, 1986, 1995) –All possible linguistic variations are hard-wired, the parameters that are set depend on exposure to language. Lexical-Functional Grammars (Bresnan, 1982, Pinker, 1984, 1990) –Grammar is actually in the lexicon, e.g. an entry for a verb entails its argument structure and restrictions as well as meaning.