Re: Transformational Grammar

March 6, 2006

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The transformational grammar was a theory of how grammatical

knowledge is represented and processed in the brain. Developed by

Noam Chomsky in the1960's, the transformational grammar consisted of:

Two levels of representation of the structure of sentences: an

underlying, more abstract form, termed 'deep structure', and the

actual form of the sentence produced, called 'surface structure'.

Deep structure is represented in the form of a heirarchical tree

diagram, or " phrase structure tree, " * depicting the abstract

grammatical relationships between the words and phrases within a

sentence.

A system of formal rules specifiying how deep structures are to be

transformed into surface structures.

Consider the two sentences " wrote a book on language " and " A

book on language was written by . " Chomsky held that there is

a deeper grammatical structure from which both these sentences are

derived. The transformational grammar provides an characterization

of this common form and how it is manipulated to produce actual

sentences.

Or take the sentence " Who will see. " This corresponds to its

surface structure. According to the transformational grammar, we

form this sentence by unconsciously applying transformation rules to

the underlying deep structure given in the phrase structure tree of

the form " will see who. " In this particular case, the

transformation rule applied is termed " Wh-movement. " *

The transformational grammar formed the basis for many subsequent

theories of human grammatical knowledge. Since Chomsky's original

presentation, many different theories have emerged. Although current

theories differ significantly from the original, the notion of a

transformation remains a central element in most models.

> Tom: " .....transformational grammar.... "

When you have a moment, might you explain what this is about?

No rush.....

I have always had difficulty expressing myself.

Rainbow

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