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TRANSFORMATIONAL
GRAMMAR
An introduction
LINGUISTICS
Linguistics
Traditional
Before 1930
Structural
40s -50s
Transformational
(Chomsky(
1957
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?

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.

How do they analyze language?
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Observe data
Generalize rules.
Develop hypotheses.
Test sentences on native speakers.
If their judgments agree with the
grammaticality rules then the hypothesis
is supported. (grammaticality judgments)
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.??
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.

GENERATIVE?
Because they allow us to
generate an infinite number of
sentences.

TRANSFORMATIONAL GRAMMAR
MODEL OF LANGUAGE
Phrase structure
Lexical component
Deep structure
Transformations
Surface structure
Morphophonemic rules
Sentence
PARAPHRASE & AMBIGUITY


1.
2.
3.
Paraphrase
When several surface
structures relate to one
deep structure.
John bought the book from
Mary.
Mary sold the book to
John.
The book was sold to John
by Mary.



1.
2.
Ambiguity
One surface structure
relating to several
deep structures.
Flying planes can be
dangerous.
To fly planes.
Planes which are flying.