TransformationalGenerativegrammar.ppt

Transformational-Transformational-Generative-grammarGenerative-grammar In the late 1950s, a new theory appeared in America and violently punched the prevailing structuralist descriptive linguistics. The founder of this new theory was A. N. Chomsky (1928 - ). As a student of Hebrew with the structuralist methodology, Chomsky tried to open up a new route when he found that the classification of structural elements of language according to distribution and substitution had its limitations. From this practice Chomsky gradually established the well-known Transformational-Generative (TG) Grammar. The publication of his Syntactic Structures ( 1957 ) marked the beginning of the Chomskyan Revolution. The Innateness Hypothesis Chomsky believes that language is somewhat innate, and that children are born with what he calls a LANGUAGE ACQUISITION DEVICE (LAD), which is a unique kind of knowledge that fits them for language learning. He argues the child comes into the world with specific innate endowment, not only with general tendencies or potentialities, but also with knowledge of the nature of the world, and specifically with knowledge of the nature of language. According to this view, children are born with knowledge of the basic grammatical relations and categories, and this knowledge is universal. The categories and relations exist in all human languages and all human infants are born with knowledge of them. According to him, the study of language, or the structure of language, can throw some light on the nature of the human mind. This approach to language is a reaction against behaviourism in psychology and empiricism in philosophy, making linguistics a branch of psychology.  This observation suggests that children are born with an innate faculty for language in general, a blueprint for languages, not just for any particular language. From this, we would then suppose that if children are predisposed for learning any language, human languages in the world must have the same underlying principles in common. This is what Chomsky called language universals or linguistic universals.What is a generative grammar? By a GENERATIVE GRAMMAR, Chomsky simply means "a system of rules that in some explicit and well-defined way assigns structural descriptions to sentences". He believes that every speaker of a language has mastered and internalised a generative grammar that expresses his knowledge of his language. "Thus a generative grammar attempts to specify what the speaker actually knows, not what he may report about his knowledge" (Chomsky, 1965).  A generative grammar is not limited to particular languages, but to reveal the unity of particular grammars and universal grammars. It does not describe one language as an end, but as a means to explore the universal rules in the hope of revealing human cognitive systems and the essential nature of human beings. The Classical Theory In the Classical Theory, Chomsky's aim is to make linguistics a science. This theory is characterised by three features: (1) emphasis on generative ability of language; (2) introduction of transformational rules; and (3) grammatical description regardless of meaning. The main ideas can be found in Chomsky's Syntactic Structures (1957). Chomsky puts forward three kinds of grammar: finite state grammar, phrase structure grammar, and transformational grammar. A finite state grammar is the simplest type of grammar which, with a finite amount of apparatus, can generate an infinite number of sentences. But they are all very simple in their structure. Then a grammar is seen as a system of finite rules generating an infinite number of sentences, and the rules must meet the following requirements : ( 1 ) Generative: the rules must automatically generate sentences; (2) Simple: the rules must be represented by symbols and formulae; (3) Explicit: everything must be stated precisely, leaving nothing to chance; (4) Exhaustive: the rules should cover all linguistic facts, leaving nothing uncovered; (5) Recursive: the rules can be repeatedly applied so as to generate an infinite number of sentences. This is what is called the PHRASE STRUCTURE GRAMMAR, the second model put forward by Chomsky, The phrase-structure rules are as followsSNP + VPVPVerb + NPNPNP(single) NP(plural)Np(s)D + NNP(p)D + N + SDtheN(man, ball, door, dog, book,…)VerbAux + VV(hit, take bite,eat,walk,open…)AuxTense(+M)(+have+en)(+be+ing)Tensepresent pastM(will, can, may, shall must ,…)The man hit the ball.•Transformational-generative grammar (转换生成语法)•Also transformational grammar, TG grammar, generative-transformational grammar, generative transformational theory•a theory of grammar which was proposed by the American linguist Chomsky in t957. It has since been developed by him and many other linguists. Chomsky attempted to provide a model for the description of all languages. A transformational generative grammar tries to show, with a system of rules, the knowledge which a native speaker of a language uses in forming grammatical sentences…•(Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching & Applied Linguistics: 387)结束结束。