语言学中语法类型的分析

The Study on Grammar
关于语法的研究
Abstract
The study of grammar began in the fifth century B.C. with Plato and Aristotle in Greece and a Sanskrit scholar named Panini in India. Now, it has developed into four kinds of grammar. They are traditional grammar, structural grammar, transformational grammar and universal grammar. The paper mainly introduce these four kinds of grammars, then explores their effects on English teaching and analyze their limitations. At last, the paper will explore how to apply these grammars into language teaching.
Key words: grammar; limitation; language teaching
摘要
对于语法的研究始于公元前15世纪，是由希腊的柏拉图与亚里士多德和印度的一个叫帕妮妮的梵文学者开创的。

由语法的发展可以将其分为四种语法：传统语法、结构语法、转换生成语法和普遍语法。

这篇论文主要介绍这四种语法，然后探讨这四种语法在英语教学中的作用及其局限性。

最后笔者将探讨如何将这四种语法运用到外语教学中去。

关键词：语法；局限性；语言教学
1. Introduction
Grammar is the system by which a language functions. The description of that system is also called a grammar. In a restricted sense, grammar refers to a level of structural organization which can be studied independently of phonology and semantics, and generally divided into the branches of syntax and morphology. If a grammar defines the total set of rules possessed by a speaker, it is a competence grammar. If a grammar is capable of explaining only the sentences a speaker has actually used, it is a performance grammar. If a grammar claims to account for the grammatical competence of every adult no mater what language he or she speaks to establish the universal characteristics of human language in general, it is a universal grammar.
There are different methods of description. A prescriptive grammar states rules for what is considered the best or most correct usage. Prescriptive grammar are often based not on descriptions of actual usage but rather on the grammarian’s views of what is best. A descriptive grammar is a systematic description of a language as found in a sample of native-speakers’ speech or writing. Descriptive grammar describes how a language is actually spoken and written and does not state or prescribe how it ought to be spoken or written.
2. Four kinds of grammar
Not all grammarians describe the system by which language functions in the same way. Various grammarians have formulated their own descriptions.
2.1 Traditional grammar
Traditional grammar is an attempt to summarize the range of attitudes and methods found in the prelinguistic era of grammatical study. The emphasis on such matters as correctness, linguistic purism, literary excellence, the use of Latin models and the priority of the written language characterizes this approach. For example, English Traditional Grammar provides fairly standard rules for using shall and will, or me and I, or commas in compound sentences.
What ultimately happens with Traditional Grammar is that the system becomes more
important than the syntax. Using the eight parts of speech, the complicated vocabulary of analysis such as gerund, participle, transitive-intransitive, subordinating conjunction, independent clause in the analysis of languages, and the many different lines one must draw in the sentence diagram characterizes this traditional approach.
Traditional Grammar has one significant point in its favour as an analytical system. It has given the other grammars many terms they use, such as the notions of hierarchy, universals and word classification. But linguistics is critical of the notional approach to the study of grammar in so far as the “notion”involved are incapable of systematic and consistent exposition, and replaces it with an emphasis on formal criteria. Forma criteria refer to phonological and grammatical criteria which define units and classes.
2.2 Structural Grammar
Structural Grammar is different from Traditional Grammar. Instead of focusing on the individual word and its notional meaning or its part-of-speech function in the sentence, Structural Grammar focuses on sounds, forms, word groups, and phrases, working from smaller to larger constituents. It tends to analyze the meaning carried by the syntactic patterns that morphemes and words make with each other, patterns like those formed by plural morphemes, modifier-verb or modifier-adjective connections, subject-predicate connections and so on. Structural Grammar developed three analytical techniques: test frames, immediate-constituent analysis, and sentence formulas.
2.2.1 Test Frames（测试框架）
Test Frames are blanks in simple sentences that may be filled in with a particular class of word, such as a noun or an adjective.
(1) The ___ cries. (“The” or “A/An” _____ verb)
(2) He was driving a ___ fast. (Subject, predicate, “the” or “a/an”, _____ adverb)
(3) Put it on that ___. (〔Subject〕, predicate, preposition, 〔modifier〕_____)
2.2.2 Immediate-constituent Analysis（直接成分分析）
It is a term used in grammatical analysis to refer to the major divisions that can be made within a syntactic construction, at any level. This technique is referred to as IC analysis. For example, in analyzing the sentence The man is speaking, the immediate constituents would be
the man and is speaking. These in turn can be analyzed into immediate constituents ( the+man, is +speaking), and the process continues until no further divisions can be made.
2.2.3 Sentence Formulas（句式）
When we work with detailed IC analyses, we can derive four basic syntactic patterns, which are called sentence formulas:
Type 1: Noun/Pronoun + Verb The dog died.
Type 2: Noun/Pronoun + Verb + Adjective They found it interesting.
Type 3: Noun/Pronoun + Verb + Noun/Pronoun He bought a book.
Type 4: Noun/Pronoun + Verb + Noun/Pronoun-1 + Noun/ Pronoun-2
2.3 Transformational Grammar
Transformational Grammar (TG) is a theory of grammar which was proposed by Chomsky in 1957. Chomsky attempted to provide a universal model for the description of all languages. There are seven models:
2.3.1 Phrase Structure Grammar（词组结构语法）
Phrase structure grammars contain rules which are capable not only of generation strings of linguistic elements, but also of providing a constituent analysis of the strings.
The simple grammar will generate not only the structure (1), but also other similar sentence structures, thus providing a partial account of the creativity of natural language.
2.3.2 Transformation（转换）
Transformation is a formal linguistic operation which enables two levels of structural
presentation to be placed in correspondence. The most well-known model is often referred to as the Standard Theory. This model consists of four main parts: the base component, the transformational component, the phonological component and the semantic component.
2.3.3 Movement（移动）
Movement transformations have the effect of moving constituents from one part of a structure to another. There are two main types of movement: WH-movement特殊疑问词移动and NP-movement名词词组移动.
(1) The city was destroyed —
［S［NPe］was［VP destroyed［NP the city］］］(deep structure)
↓
NP movement
↓
［S［the city i］was［VP destroyed［NP t i］］］(surface structure)
(2)Which car will your father put — in the garage?
［S Comp［your father will［VP put［NP which car］in the garage］］］
↓
WH-movement
↓
S Comp［NP which car i］will your father［VP put［NP t i］in the garage］］］
2.3.4 X-bar Theory （X-阶理论）
X-bar is a system of grammatical analysis developed as an alternative to classical analysis of phrase structure. X-bar theory claims that the phrasal level and the lexical level are insufficient to capture all the details of phrase structure, and that more phrasal categories need to be recognized. There are some items: intermediate categories中间语类, specifier, complement and adjunct限定词、补语、附加语, IP (Inflectional phrase屈折变化词组, AGR(agreement)呼应.
2.3.5 Bounding（界限理论）
The basic idea of bounding is that movements are not possible out of certain constructions. One way of handling this is the theory of Subjacency (Chomsky 1973), which subsumes
several earlier constraints. It should suit for the principle of subjacency邻近原则. That is no movement can move an element over more than one bounding node at a time.
〔CP〔NP e〕might〔AGRP they wonder〔CP what〔AGRP he said to who〕〕〕〕
*Who might they wonder what he said to?
2.3.6 Government and Binding Theory（管辖与约束理论）
It deals with whether expressions in the sentence may refer to the same entities as other expressions. It is basically concerned with the issue of how pronouns and other types of nouns relate to each other. There are two principles: The Case Assignment Principle授格原则, The Binding Principle约束原则.
2.3.7 The Minimalist Programme（最简方案）
The Minimalist Programme develops directly out of the Government and Binding approach. The theory attempts to reduce the grammar to its minimum. The Principle of Economy is a more general requirement that language structures be as economical as possible: the only elements that can appear in a sentence are those which need to.
2.4 Universal Grammar (UG)
Universal grammar is a theory which claims to account for the grammatical competence of every adult no matter what language he speaks. It claims that every speaker knows a set of principles which apply to all languages and also a set of parameters that can vary from one language to another, but only within certain limits. There are some concepts in UG:
2.4.1 I-language and E-language 内化语言与外化语言
Chomsky distinguishes Externalized(E-) language from Internalized(I-) language (Chomsky 1986, 1991). The former is viewed as something independent of the properties of the mind, and the latter an internal property of the human mind. Thus, E-language linguistics aims to collect samples of language and then to describe their properties. I-language linguistics aims to discover what constitutes language knowledge, that is, what a speaker knows about language and where this knowledge comes from.
2.4.2 Linguistic Competence and Linguistic Performance 言语能力和言语行为
The distinction between competence and performance partly corresponds to the distinction between I-language and E-language. Linguistic competence refers to “the speaker/hearer’s
knowledge of his language”, the system of rules which he has mastered so that he is able to produce and understand an indefinite number of sentences, and to recognize grammatical mistakes and ambiguities. Linguistic performance is the “actual use of language in concrete situations”(Chomsky 1965). Performance is an imperfect reflection of competence.
2.4.3 Universal Grammar普遍语法
The goals of Chomsky’s theory are to describe language as a property of the human mind and to explain how it is acquired. TG tries to show, with a system of rules, the knowledge which a native speaker of a language uses in forming grammatical sentences.
2.4.4 Language Acquisition Device(LAD) 语言习得装置
In the late 1960s Chomsky and others claimed that every normal human being was born with an LAD. Chomsky described language acquisition as a black box problem—although we can observe the sentences which children produce, we cannot observe how they actually acquire language. The LAD which includes basic knowledge about the nature and structure of human language is the capacity to acquire one’s first language; it enables the child to make hypotheses about the structure of language in general, and about the structure of the language it is learning in particular.
3. The limitation of four kinds of grammar
3.1 Traditional Grammar
Firstly, traditional grammar is normative and prescriptive rather than explicit and descriptive. Its rules re illogical, it is inconsistent and inadequate as a description of actual language in use. It neglects not only the contemporary uses but also the functional and social varieties of language. Its approach is diachronic rather than synchronic. Fries in his book The Structure of English challenges the traditional grammars by calling them “not insightful”, “pre-scientific”, “prescriptive” and having a “literary bias”.
Secondly, it over-emphasize the importance of written words, partly because of its permanence. People were encouraged to imitate the “best authors” for language usage. Many of the rules of traditional grammar apply only to the written language, they cannot be made meaningful in terms of the spoken language, without much qualification and addition.
Thirdly, traditional grammar also force language into a Latin-based framework. For a
long time on the European continent it was unquestionably assumed that Latin provides a universal framework into which all languages fit. As a result, other languages were forced to fit into Latin patterns and categories, especially its case system and tense divisions of past, present and future.
Fourthly, traditional grammar failed to provide the kinds of analysis required, it just focuses on the individual word and its notional meaning or its part-of-speech function in the sentence.
Lastly, it cannot resolve the ambiguity existing in the grammatical forms. Its methods are inaccurate, incomplete and inconsistent, and the descriptions are inexplicit and intuitive. John Lyons states, “The traditional grammarian tended to assume, not only that the written language was more fundamental than the spoken, but also that a particular form of the written namely the literary language, written and spoken, and that it was his task, as a grammarian, to preserve this form of language from corruption.”
3.2 Structural grammar
Structural grammar contains three analytical techniques: test frames, immediate-constituent analysis, and sentences formulas. Each of the three techniques has limited effectiveness for an adequate analysis of a language.
Test frames will show some parts of speech but cannot comment in detail on structural methods in a sentence: coordination, subordination and so on. Although IC analysis can identify some superficial structures it fails to reveal the process of a syntactic construction. Although sentence formulas can generate a number of very simple sentence they can not account for some important semantic distinctions.
Furthermore, structural grammar avoid meaning, no appeal is made to meaning. Bloomfield stated that, “meaning is complicated, only omniscient generalists can analysis or arrange it”. (Bloomfield P197) All categories are arrived at in a purely mechanical manner. Hence noun, for example, no longer defined as a “person, place or thing”as in traditional grammar but as any item which can occur in the position immediately after that.
In brief, structural grammar fails to reveal the infinite capacity which language has for creating new sentences. From a pedagogical standpoint, it is difficult to see that an
understanding of immediate-constituent analysis will help the learner grasp the fundamental principles involved in sentence construction.
3.3 Transformational grammar
There are seven models of transformational grammar: phrase structure grammar, transformation, movement, X-bar Theory, bounding, government and binding theory, the minimalist programme.
There are two problems associated with the phrase structure grammar. First, it is too unconstrained in the set of possible phrase structure rules it permits. Second, it is too restricted in the number of types of categories it permits. Since its outline, there have been several attempts to remedy the deficiencies of the phrase structure grammar.
Transformation model has tree diagrams, it is complex and difficult to comprehend, so it may not be used in English teaching.
The rule of movement permits the movement of any constituent from one part of a sentence to another, but its application is limited. If in practice this is not possible, then there might be a set of universal or language-specific rule which determine why if is not possible to move certain constituents into certain other positions.
As the grammar matured, however, it lost its simplicity and much of its elegance. In addition, transformational grammar has been plagued by Chomsky's ambivalence and ambiguity regarding meaning. Chomsky continued to tinker with transformational grammar, changing the theories and making it more abstract and in many respects more complex, until all but those with specialized training in linguistics were befuddled.
Transformational grammar failed to solve most of the problems because Chomsky refused to abandon the idea of deep structure, which is at the heart of transformational grammar but which also underlies nearly all of its problems. Such complaints have fueled the paradigm shift to cognitive grammar."
3.4 Universal grammar
According to Chomsky, UG is present in the child’s mind as a system of principles and parameters. The principles of UG are principles of the initial state. The initial universal grammar of a child consists of fixed principles and unset parameters.
Although there is a big argument on Chomsky’s UG theory, it is useful in Second Language Learning.
4. Grammar and second language teaching
Traditional teaching grammar method is to teach students grammar rule after rule. The learners have to remember the dull rules in mind, but they can’t use them freely. When they are speaking a foreign language, they have to stop from time to time to think of the sentence structure and the grammar rules in order to express themselves correctly, but in the course of practical communicating with one another, perhaps it is unimaginable to stop for a moment to have some time to think about something and then speak continuously. What they should do is trying to speak fluently and make the language receiver understand them. In the traditional teaching of the grammar, the center of the process is the teacher, and the teacher controls every learner’s action as possible as he can. The learners are the passive receivers, because they can’t think, speak freely. What they have to do is to remember the rules the teacher taught them. That is, this process is a passive one of learning. And now, teachers will not use this method to teach grammar.
Some language professionals look at how sentences are put together in linguistic research, as they can garner some clues about how a person is learning a language according to the sounds and arrangements he selects. This type of research provides vital information on what a person can and cannot understand at different age levels. It can alter how an individual communicates based on his audience and has a strong link to both education and marketing.
Those who are studying a second language also find analysis of sentence construction useful. They use it in a method called comparative analysis, in which they see how the elements and structures of the two languages are the same or different. It is important because a person sometimes has to abandon the engrained structural rules of his native language to properly employ the second language. In English, for example, adjectives precede the words they modify. In French, they generally follow the modified words. Using the proper words but under the wrong arrangement is a telltale sign that someone is not a native speaker.
Teachers also use structural grammar in language and composition classes. In the past, educators taught people how to improve sentences and communication through techniques
such as sentence diagramming. Academic professionals still employ these methods. The trend, however, is for teachers to combine structural and transformational grammar and to teach language with other techniques, such as having students rephrase given sentences.
Chomsky’s Transformational Grammar can used in English vocabularies learning, writing and ambiguity avoiding. In vocabularies learning, learners can divide words into different groups, such as color group, autonomy group. In writing, learners can transform short sentences into long sentences. Learners can also use internal structure to avoided ambiguity.
The strongest case for the operation of principles of UG in interlanguage grammars can be made if learners demonstrate knowledge of subtle and abstract linguistic properties which could neither have been learned from L2 input alone nor derived from the grammar of the mother tongue.
5. Conclusion
A grammar is a description of the grammatical structure of a language and the way in which linguistic units are combined to produce sentences in the language. Traditional grammar is usually based on earlier grammars of Latin or Greek and applied to some other language. In a mere seventy years, traditional grammar has been fundamentally challenged by structural grammar. Structuralism has a more restricted definition, referring to the Bloonfieldian emphasis on the processed of segmenting and classifying the physical features of utterance with little reference to the abstract underlying structures of language or their meaning. Structural grammar has in turn been superseded by a transformational grammar, which focuses on the mental state of the language user. And then it was developed into Universal grammar.
This paper firstly introduced four kinds of grammar, and then find out their limitations. Lastly, it discussed the relationship between these four grammars and Second Language Teaching. This paper explore the relationship between grammar and SLA. Although the debate is still going on in the field of Linguistics, our understanding of language development especially the grammar in Linguistics has surely been greatly enhanced by such debates.
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