A Paper on Evolution of Generative Grammar By: Shokrollah BEHZADI PESONNEL NO: 58545778 ISFAHAN, DISTRICT 2 Day, 1388 Jan, 2010 Abstract A lot of researches have been conducted on different theories of grammar mentioning their strong points and weak ones , and also many linguistics have taken an important role in developing these theories. The purpose of this research is to study Evolution of Generative Grammar. In this research the foundation and the reasons of evolution of this kind of grammar have been mentioned and also a brief history of grammar and the different theories of this territory have been put down. This research also mentions the reasons why the theories on grammar have been modified through the time. At the end of the research some future trends in this area have been suggested. 1-Introduction The goal of this research is to study generative grammar, its foundation and its evolution, but before dealing with this fundamental issue I am going to give a definition of Grammar and a brief history of theories on this area Grammar refers to logical and structural rules governing: the composition of sentences, phrases and words in any language. (www.wikipedia.com) Three main theories on grammar since nineteenth century have been traditional grammar, structural grammar and transformational grammar. Such theories have been given by many great grammarians such as Leonardo Bloomfield, Zellig Harris and Noam Chomsky. A quick change in the theories of grammar has happened since the 19 century. So, this century was a very important era in the beginning of evolution of
grammar. Thus, to elucidate the main issue, let’s have a look at these three fundamental theories. 1-2- Traditional Grammar Traditional grammar is a kind of grammar consisting of prescription. This kind of grammar prescribes rules about using words in a sentence. It also gives names to parts of speech such as the noun, the verb, and the adverb and so on. Another important feature in traditional grammar is the analyzing of sentences The analysis of sentence is the separation of it into its parts (Reed and Kellog, 1909). This is the most important characteristic of this grammar. The first systematic grammars originated by Panini in Sanskrit language. Also, some of his commentators such as Pingala, Katyoyona and Patanjali helped to this realm of grammar. 1-3- Structural Grammar This new school of grammar started during the second quarter of the twentieth century. Leonard Bloomfield is said to be originator of this school in 1933. Bloomfield hoped to begin his field of study as scientific one. (Liles, 1972). Liles also explains the reason for the evolution of structural grammar: There were a number of reasons which caused the Structuralists to become disenchanted with traditional grammar and to try to develops a more satisfactory approach one of the greatest problems they found with the traditional approach was that it was inadequate for describing many languages. It was impossible for example to analyze American Indian languages according to the eight parts of speech. The structures of these languages were incompatible with traditional classifications. So, the new theory evolved. That is, structural grammar defined as a kind of grammar for describing the structure of grammatical sentence. In this kind of grammar substitution is important and also word class and structures are expanded into larger structures. (Cattell , 1969) Another linguist who has had a very important role in developing this theory is Zellig Harris. His role is very important in “Methods in structural linguistics” He helped to bring structural grammar to the forefront in the 1940’s (Nevin 2002) The most important characteristic of this method is analyzing how words form and how those words are used together to form larger structures. This theory distinguishes form and meaning in language while traditional grammar mostly focuses on the meaning of the words and considers sentences as a complete thought, Also the emphasis of structural linguistics is on language used by members of the community, so Bloomfield’s slogan was: “Accept everything a native speaker says in his language and nothing he says about it”. Thus, We say that structural grammarians are famous for their descriptive approach to grammar. However, since the late 1950’s structural grammar was criticized by transformational grammar. (Lilies 1972) and this happened, as Chomsky claims, to overcome the inadequacies of certain theories of phrase structure rule on procedures of constituents analysis in structural linguistics and also on the study of formal languages. Transformational grammar was the early version of generative grammar originated by Chomsky. Before treating with the development of different models of transformational grammar, let’s raise some fundamental questions about this important issue: Research Questions 1-what is generative grammar? 2- why did it evolve into its present situation? 3- How did it evolve? Research Hypothesis Based on these questions a hypothesis is given: The human grammar will be open to future investigation constantly creating new trends. 2- Generative Grammar Generative grammar is a particular approach to study syntax. This word was introduced into linguistic by Chomsky in 1950. Generative grammar is a set of rules by which different kinds of language systems are defined. (Lyons, 1981) A generative grammar of a language tries to give a set of rules that will correctly predict which combinations of words will form grammatical sentence. Most versions of generative grammar characterize sentences as either well - formed or not. In most approaches to generative grammar, the rules will also predict the morphology of a sentence. (Wikipedia) Although numerous scholars disagree with Chomsky’s claims he gained many supporters and the idea was both developed and challenged at the same time His works have influenced psycholinguistics, cognitive linguistics and language methodology . A classical generative grammar consists of four elements: (Kamil Wisniewsk 2007) 1-A limited number of conterminal signs. 2- A beginning sign which is contained in the limited number of conterminal signs . 3- A limited number of terminal signs 4- A finite set of rules which enable rewriting conterminal signs as strings of terminal signs. The term generative grammar’ which was introduced into linguistics by Chomsky in the mid-1950 is nowadays employed in two rather different senses. In its original, narrower and more technical sense was the same mentioned before but in its second sense, that is, generetivism it refers to a whole body of theoretical and method logical assumptions about language Structure. Taking these two sense in mind , it is time to get right into the foundation of generative grammar and the reason why it evolved into its present situation and the ‘how’ of its evolution. 3- The foundation of generative grammar Three theoretical pillars which support generative grammar are: mentalism, combinatoriality; and acquisition: Mentalism Before Aspects of syntax mentioned by Chomsky the paramount view among linguistics was that language exists in texts or in the community (the Latter was under influence of Saussure’s view (1915) .But Chomsky urged that language is in the mind of language speaker, According to this view a community has a common language shared by the speakers of that community. This view considers language as an ability and knowledge In this view language is a kind of brain property. Combinatoriality It means that a language contains an arbitrarily large number of sentences . Therefore, in addition to the finite list of words, a language must contain a set of rules describing or generate the sentences of the language. Acquisition Mentalism and combimatoriality together lead to an important question: How do children get the rules into their heads? Noam Chomsky is perhaps the best known and the most influential linguist of the second half of the twentieth century He has made a number of strong claims about language . He suggests that language is an innate faculty that is to say that we are born with a set of rules about language in our heads referring to the ‘ Universal Grammar. The Universal is the basis upon which all human languages are built. Up to this point the foundations of Generative grammar was briefly discussed and the evolution of Grammar was briefly discussed and the evolution of grammar from beginning was mentioned in brief. Now it is time to treat with different versions of generative grammar whose early versions are transformational grammar and later the historical development of trans formational grammar will be discussed and the reasons for this change will be mentioned. 4- Transformational grammar “A transformational grammar is a kind of grammar setting two levels of structure and relates these levels by means of operations known as transformations”. Atchison (1992: 169) A transformational grammar (like most other types of grammar) has three major components: syntax, phonology and semantics. It is also different from other grammars in that the syntactic component is divided into two components: the base and the transformational rules: Syntactic component: 1) Base semantic component 2)T-Rules phonological rules 4-1- Historical development of transformational grammar models 4-1-2- Standard Theory (1957-1965) In the Standard Theory, the base contained phrase structure (Ps) rules for the formation of deep structure and also a lexicon from which words come to the output of PS rules. The deep structure then passed to the transformational rules in order to be changed into the surface structure. At this point. The surface structure of a sentence was still abstract, it did not yet have a phonetic form. This was met by the phonological component which converted each surface structure into a phonetic components, which gave a semantic interpretation of each. In 1960, it seemed that there was no problem and linguistics hoped to produce final and definitive list of possible transformation, but some problems arose: “The most obvious trouble with transformations in the Standard Theory (1956) was that they appeared to be a kind of magic wand, something which could change a deep structure into any kind of surface structure by any means whatsoever. But this would clearly be absurd. We would not want a device which altered a deep structure something like: Bill kept the dodo in the bath into, say,: My goldfish eats bumble- bees”. (Atchison 1999: 177) But there must be some restrictions on transformations, and the most powerful of these restrictions is that they should not be allowed to change meaning. But in some cases we encountered sentences which the problem appeared and another theory called Extended standard Theory was represented to solve the problem. 4.1.2. Extended standard Theory (1965-1973) This theory is really a extension of standard Theory in which transformations also could not change meaning and the deep structure was the only input to the meaning. In this theory it is said that for limited types of sentences, semantic interpretation depends on both deep structure and surface structure. As mentioned this theory was developed because of the problem arisen as a result of the changing of meaning using transformations, so this theory tries to consider the meaning change by establishing semantic interpretation rules to apply both to deep structure and to surface structure. However, the problems arose again. The min problem was to specify the underlying structures, which became more and more complex. Nobody could agree on what they should be like. They seemed to be based on persons’ intuitions than to be something which was to be objective. They also needed some complicated rules. At last most supporters of this approach gave up the impossible task of specifying details. And in the end most supporters of this theory accepted that some surface structures were important for the interpretation of meaning and the following theory arose. 4-1-3- Revised Extended standard Theory: (1973-1976) This theory says that all semantic interpretation occurs at the level of surface structure. This analysis is possible only if we modify our conception of those transformational rules that delete or move constituents in the process of generating surface structures from deep structures. The modifications that is necessary requires that such transformation leave a “trace” of the constituent in is original position. This trace would then be available at surface structure and , therefore semantic interpretation could occur. The details of this new proposal remain to be developed. (Julia. S Falk 1978: 256) However the assumption that surface structures alone are responsible for meaning had several repercussions on the rest of the grammar. Above all, it became important to know where items had been moved from in the deep structure This was necessary in order for the grammar to be able to deal with the meaning of sentences in which an NP had been shifted away from its original position when an NP was moved it was assumed to leave behind a faint trace of its previous location, (Atchison, 1999: 182) Although Standard has the advantage of simplifying the superficial contusion of language, coping with different transformations led to its own problems and listing transformations many of them were unnecessary and uneconomic. And also different transformational rules sometimes had the same effect, yet this was at recognized in the grammar. so, transformations. little by little disappear one after the after. And these changes led to a new version of transformational grammar: 4-1-4- Government and binding theory (1981-1990) In this theory two aspects of grammar ignored in the Standard Theory are attentioned. One of them is government and the other one is binding. The source of the word government can be found in terms of traditional grammar “Nouns are governed as it is called by verbs and prepositions; that is to say, these latter sorts of words cause nouns to be in such or such or such a case; and there must be a concord or agreement between the nouns and the other words, which along with nouns, compose a sentence. (Cobbett, 1819:67) So, the notion of this theory has been in linguistics for a long time. That is , it has been recognized that some words have influenced over other words: For example, in Latin grammars it was recognized that prepositions govern nouns. But , in the recent meaning the word government is used in connection with heads of phrases influencing others. For example in English a verb such as 'eat' governs an NP like “a sandwich” There is also an important relationship between words in the same sentence. One specific thing about this theory is to specify which part exactly govern one another and Chomsky and his followers tried to depict a wider notion of government known as command, meaning which constituents have power over others in a tree structure. And Binding is interlinked with the notion of command. As mentioned above one of the topics in traditional grammar was the relationship among the parts of a sentence and this was developed by Chomsky in GB. Furthermore one of the important topics in traditional grammar was how pronouns were related to their antecedents. As Cobbett mentions it."Never write a personal pronoun without duly considering what noun it will, upon a reading of the sentence be found to relate to (Cobbett, 1819:73). Binding Theory is basically concerned with the same issue of how pronouns and other types of noun relate to each other. In Government and Binding theory introduced the concepts of principles and parameters by which language knowledge consists of two levels, that is, logic form (L.F) and phonetic form. (P.F): Of course these two levels themselves come from this process Lexicon Deep structure Government Surface Structure Logic form (semantic component) Phonetic Form However the necessity of these levels were questioned And this issue paved the way for another important theory called Minimalism. 4-1-5- The Minimalist Programme Theories about human language are becoming economic and simple and the statements about language are going to be as simple as possible. From the beginning of generative grammar in 1960 the goal was to abstract general principles from the complex rule systems. (Chomsky, 1995: 388) The minimalist framework continues this drive for simplification In particular it draws on concepts from Chomsky’s late 1980, papers such as full Interpretation and Economy of representation and derivation and derivation (Cook & Newson, 1996: 312). So, it is easy to see how the Principle of Economy leads to Minimalism, that is, to be both economical and generative the smallest possible set of devices for language should be used. In the minimalism framework only LF and PF are really necessary and there is the possibility of doing away with D structure and Structure. Of course there must still be a lexicon and a computational system which forms LF and PF representations from lexical information. “The I- language consists of a computational procedure and a lexicon (Chomsky 1995:15) So, the idea of minimalist design would be something like: Lexicon PF - [phonetic component ) LF (semantic component) Explanation about the Minimalist Program doesn’t end at this point. However, because we want to have a brief review of each theory and to give a sketch of it we have to explain the general points of each theory. Now, it’s time to get right into one important subject, that is, what will happen next? What is the future this path will it end; or the evolution will continue. Certainly the latter question is correct because the is everything in the world changing and so is language and its theories. 5- Future trends in the evolution of grammar theories There are three things in life you must never run after a bus, a woman and a theory of transformational grammar. There will be another one along a moment, commented one well- known linguist (Aitcheson 1992: 189) Grammars evolve through usage and also due to separations of the human population. This evolution happens because the society changes and as a result people’s needs change. As we saw the theories on grammar have become more economic and easier to understand and this process is going to continue. Moreover, scientists from various disciplines have begun to focus renewed attention on the psychology and biology of human morality. One research program which has gained attraction and has been profiled in science, Nature. the New York Times, and other publications is universal moral grammar (UMG)UMG seeks to describe the nature and origin of moral knowledge by using concepts and models similar to those used in Chomsky’s program in linguistic . (Georgetown Public Law Research Paper No, 95439) Thus, as we see the changes are being done to meat the human’s needs. And as our society develops and makes progress the theories on different field of study are becoming more real and tangible. So, the future perspective more real and tangible so, the future Perspective of grammar would be one based on psychology, morality and people’s understanding. 6-Conclusion In this research a brief history of grammar wa*s put down and the reason of appearance of each one was mentioned. Furthermore, the pitfalls of each theory was given in brief . This research also aimed to say that the theories of grammar are changing and being modified through the time and are becoming more economic, through the time since the society changes and it develops. and also because science is making progress. and people’s thoughts are also becoming more scientific. Thus, the theories taken granted by scientist for years are questioned whether in the domain of grammar or in any other linguistic fields, this is because more complete researches are being done on different domains of language. So we must surely expect other future trends in the territory of grammar and we bear in mind that as the world changes language and its different parts change. References Aitcheson, Jean (1992). Teach yourself linguistics. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Chomsky, Noam (1995), The Minimalist Program. MIT Press Cook, V.j & Newson, Mark (1996), Chomsky’s Universal Grammar: An Introduction, second edition. Blank well Publishers Ltd. Cattell, N.R. (1969), The New English Grammar: A Descriptive Introduction Cambridge, Massachustts: The MLT Press Falk , Julia S( 1978), English Transformational Grammar.Blasdell Publishing co. Lyons, John (1981), Language and linguistics : An Introduction. Cambridge University Press. Jackendoff, Ray (2003) Programme in Linguistics .Cambridge University Press Liles, Bruce (1972), Linguistic and the English Language: A Transformational Approach. Publishing Company Inc.
