Chomsky转换生成语法总结

Transformational -Generative Grammar

In the late 1950s,Chomsky gradually established the well known Transformational-Generative grammer.

TG grammer has been five stages of development. The classical theory,the standard theory,the extend standard, the revised extended,the minimalist program.

12.4.1 The Innateness Hypothesis 天赋假设

Chomsky believes that children are born with what he calls LANGUAGE ACQUISITION DEVICE.

Chomsky's INNATENESS HYPOTHESIS is based on his observation that some important facts can never be otherwise explained adequately.All these suggest that although babies are not born knowing a language,they are born with a predisposition to develop a language in much the same way as they are born with a predisposition to learn to walk.

He argues that LAD probably consitis of three elements:a hypothesis-maker,linguistic universal,and an evaluation procedure.

12.4.2 what is a Generative Grammar?

By a GENERATIVE GRAMMAR,he simply means a system of rules that in some explicit and well-defined way assigns structural descriptions to sentence.he believes that every speaker of a language has mastered and internalised a generative grammar that express his knowledge of his language.Thus a generative grammar attmpts to specify what the speaker actually knows,not whay he may report about his knowledge.

He puts forward three different levels to evaluate grammers on.They are the OBSERV ATIONAL ADEQUACY level, the DESCRIPTIVE ADEQUACY level , the EXPLANORY ADEQUACY level.

On the first level,grammers are able to produce correct explanation for raw linguistic data.On the second level,it should not produce correct explanation for raw linguistic data,but also produce corrcet explanations for the linguistic competence of the speaker and hearer.On the third,grammers that are sufficiently described should reveal linguistic competence and then relate it with universal grammers in order to be related to the initial state of the human mind for the purpose of revealing human cognitive systems.

He insists on the HYPOTHESIS-DEDUCTION method and his research is called evaluation process.

Eg: John saw mary into Mary was seen by John

NP1+AUX +V+NP 2 --------NP2 +aux +be +en+V+NP1

Thus,TG method can not only describe the surface structure of a sentence,but also interprest the internal grammatical relationships within a sentence.

12.4.3 The classical theory

This theory is characterized by three features:1.emphasis on generative ability of language 2.introduction of transnational rules 3.grammermatical description regardless on meaning.

He puts forward three kinds of grammer:finte state grammer,phrase structure grammar,and transformation grammar.

A finite state grammer is the simplest type of grammar which,with a finite amount of apparatus,can generate an infinite number of sentence.but they are all very simple in their structure.Enhlish is not a finite stage language. The point of Chomsky's devising such a grammar is to show the impracticality of organising language from left to right order,and such a process is