Transformational Generative Grammar

This theory was propounded by Avram Noam Chomskly

Demonstrate a system of rules the knowledge with which
a native speaker uses in forming any and all grammatical
sentences and rejecting ungrammatical ones.
Three constituents
A syntactic component
A semantic component
A phonological component
Transformational Generative Grammar
There are three things in life you
must never run after

TG
Grammar

There will be another one in a moment

 Semantic and Phonological components are purely
interpretative and play no part in recursive generation of
structure.
Syntactic component has
1. A base
2. A transformational component
1. Base --- consists of categorial sub-component and lexicon
---- generates deep structure that enter the semantic
component and receives a semantic interpretation.
2. A transformational component --- the semantic interpretation is
mapped by the transformational rules into surface structure
---- phonological components give it a phonetic
interpretation.
 Categorial Rules Semantic
Base Lexicon component

Syntactic
Component

Transformational Phonological
Rules Component
 Syntactic Component
Specifies an infinite set of abstract formal objects
Each of the objects incorporates all info relevant to a single
interpretation of a sentence or strings.
Syntactic Component

Base Component Transformational compo.

Categorial sub-component lexicon

 Base component
A system of rules
Generates highly restrictive set of basic strings
Each string has an associated structural description called basic
phrase marker.
Basic p-markers are the elementary units of deep structure
It has two sub-components
1. Categorial sub-component
2. Lexion
-consists of a sequence of context-free rewriting rules
--rules function to define a certain system of grammatical
interpretation and to specify an abstract underlying order of
elements that makes the functioning of transformational rules
possible
1. Categorial sub-component
-consists of a sequence of context-free rewriting rules
--rules function to define a certain system of grammatical
interpretation and to specify an abstract underlying order of
elements that makes the functioning of transformational rules
possible
--the rules may be universal
-- the formal property has infinite generative capacity.
-- thus, rewriting rules can insert basic p-markers into other
basic p-markers--- a limitless continuation.
S NP-AuxVP, VP- VNP, NP DetN
2. Lexicon
An unordered set of lexical entries and certain redundancy
rules
Redundancy rules add and specify features wherever these
can be predicted by general rules.
Lists all the lexical items of the language and associates
with each that the syntactic, semantic and phonological info
require for correct operation of the rules.
Transformation component
Contains rules to change basic syntactic or deep structure
into a sentence-like or surface struture.
Underlying p-markers of DS converted into derived p-
markers to represent the SS.
 Chomsky differentiated two types of sentences
1. Kernel sentence---the basic, elementary sentences of the
language,
2. Transforms are the all else structures drawn from kernels
S---NP+VP --kernel sentence
It is the heart of the grammar
John opened the door possible transforms---
John opened the door. John did not open the door.
Did john open the door? Didnt John open the door?
The door was opened by John
 Semantic Component
Determines semantic interpretation
Relates to syntactic components
Syntactic component specifies for each sentence a DS that
determines its semantic interpretation
Phonological component
Determines the phonetic form of a sentence generated by
the syntactic rules
Relates a structure generated by the syntactic component
to phonetically represented signal of a SS
DEEP STRUCTURE AND SURFACE STRUCTURE
Deep structure is the aspect of syntactic structure operated
on by semantics for the purpose of semantic interpretation.
Surface structure is the aspect of syntactic structure
operated on by phonology for the purpose of phonetic
interpretation. T
he surface structure is more immediately obvious and the
deep structure takes into consideration the transformation.
TG accentuates that the structures relevant for semantic
interpretation turn out to be different from those which are
relevant for phonological interpretation
 The following example is a simple model of how TG
operates.
The boy killed the dog.
This sentence is generated by the following PS rules:
1. S----NP + Pred.
2. NP----Det + N
3. Pred.----Aux + VP
4. Aux.----Tense (past)
5. VP----V + NP
 These rules do not only give the string but also exclude the
possibility of generating the ungrammatical sentences.
*The dog boy the killed.
This example makes it apparent that there is an analogy
between the human mind and computer. As the computer
decides the relevant information and gives the result, similarly
the human mind has the capacity to understand the code of
each and every lexical item and put them into syntactic
structure by following the rules of language.
Moreover, it has the unique capacity of avoiding errors by
automatic checking and has infinite creativity in sentence
formation.
 `Flying planes can be dangerous' - has two senses:
(a) The action of flying planes can be dangerous. (b) Planes
which fly can be dangerous.
This ambiguity cannot be resolved by a traditional grammar
approach as it would focus on the surface- the word order.
But the problem lies in the deep structure.
Therefore, only TG can account for the ambiguity. The
difference between (a) and (b) can be explained by showing the
difference in matrix and the constituents.
(a) is the result of the following kernel sentences: (i)------can
be dangerous.
(ii)------someone flies planes.
 (ii) is transformed into flying planes inserted in the place of
NP.
(b) has the following kernel sentences: (i)planes can be
dangerous. (ii)planes fly
. Applying relative transformation we get the string
Planes which fly can be dangerous.
 `Which fly' is again transformed into flying and then placed
before planes.
Thus we find that the deep structures of two sentences which
were identical on the surface are quite different on the deep
level.
Therefore to examine and explain ambiguity, TG approach is
always preferable to the traditional rules.
In this sense TG is also significant from the perspective of
searching the grammatical universals which would reveal the
mystery of language and perhaps make it possible to be fed into
computers to give desired sentences varied for pedagogic and
other purposes.