Transformational grammar

The generative transformational grammar (TG), also generating grammar is a generative grammar with transformation rules. The model was designed in the 1950s by Noam Chomsky and 1965 extended to the interpretative semantics. The discussion about the semantic component within the TG led to the Linguistics Wars, a broad scientific debate, during which Chomsky and his colleagues further developed their ideas in different versions.

Description

The generative transformational grammar is according to the theory of Noam Chomsky overcoming the taxonomic structuralism dar. Chomsky asked how a speaker of any language with a finite number of rules can produce an infinite number of sentences and understands how a listener sentences he previously never has heard.

A generative transformational grammar is thus a model describing the dynamic process of speech production and speech reception, the ability of the ideal speaker / listener to produce and understand grammatical expressions ( competence).

This idea of an ideal speaker is connected to the design of a natural logic. Here, the structural theories of grammar -oriented, inter alia, Rudolf Carnap. As a representative of logical empiricism, he worked on a logical analysis of language along the lines of physical language, which he regarded as the universal language of science.

A further prerequisite for such an approach is the premise that the language system in the brain similar works like a computer. According to Jerry Fodor's view of the diverse structures and meanings of linguistic expressions can ( surface structure ) to a grammatical rule set ( the deep structure ) be attributed on the one hand by transformations ( transformations ) generates the user ( generated) and on the other hand allows the understanding. According to the linguists took over at their notations which - used in the computer science - mathematical symbols in graph theory in conjunction with algorithms: basic form for the Konstituentenanalyse is the tree graph. Jerry Fodor describes the abstract base structures as the language of the Spirit, which is localized in individual brain regions and could be modeled by causal sequences and rules. Because he, like Chomsky (see Cartesian Linguistics ) emanating from a genetic disposition, he assumes that every person has these language skills and it is possible to model a partial languages ​​overarching universal base language for an ideal speaker / listener. When learning to speak the child must only acquire the lexical items and morphemes, and bind them with the structures. Chomsky et al implemented this approach in the generative transformational grammar to: the speaker understands the utterances by opening up the meaning of the sentence from the meanings of the individual components, the Formative, (interpreted ). The idea of an ideal speaker / listener and the transformation rule system are discussed by new research in cybernetics and cognitive science or questioned.

The use of language, however, referred to Chomsky as performance. The standard version of Chomsky consists of a generating part (base), which generates deep structures in the transformation part by individual languages ​​(eg English, German ) different transformations are transferred to the surface structures, while a semantic and a phonological interpretation ( More information: Interpretative semantics) learn. The basis of this grammar is syntactically. Therefore, that such grammar provides for each set that it generates ( produces ), a depth and a surface structure as well as the meaning and the phonetic realization.

The Lakoff - variant

→ see also Jerrold Katz: The Semantic Theory 1.1 Background 1.2 The model of semantic interpretation 1.3 Discussion 1.4 Literature

→ see also: Interpretative Semantics 5 The Linguistics Wars - Lakoff against Chomsky 6 The semantic theory in the discussion

In response to the criticism of the Aspects version of Chomsky expanded his model of transformational grammar to the semantic component, while Lakoff with their generative semantics (the " GS" ), among others chose a different approach:

• In contrast to Chomsky's model, the sentences of a language underlying abstract base components ( formation rules ) in the GS produce no more syntactic deep structures, but semantic sentence representations, also called deep structures (but not in Chomsky's definition), which describe the sentence meaning completely. This is done through the smallest meaningful units ( = atomic predicates ) that are written in capital letters. Therefore, the GS is - in contrast to TG - without operating on the deep structures of semantic components.
• The TG Chomsky, however, is based on the derivation steps of a syntactic component, which produces the basic component ( formation rules lexicon ) and the deep structures. This is extended by the semantic component ( = semantic rules) that generate the Semantic representations in the deep structure. With the help of transformation rules ( transformation component ), the surface structures.

• In the GS subsequent to the semantic sentence representation transformation component replaces the abstract atomic predicates that are already carriers of meaning, through Formative. These only need to be equipped with the previously missing phonological and syntactic properties and set correctly shaped - normal language - syntactic surface structures forth.

• Summary of 1 and 2: There is a fundamentally different view on the relation between syntax and semantics. The TG is composed of two different control devices: generative syntax and semantics which interprets the built up by the syntax structures. Structuring and semantic relations of linguistic expressions are therefore two different linguistic aspects. In the GS however, there is no fundamental difference between semantic and syntactic phenomena and therefore only a single semantic rule apparatus. Representatives of the TG complain that the GS the central semantic phenomena not explained by their rule apparatus, but with the additional meaning postulates. There is thus only an addition to the syntax description.

• The GS organized the tree graph not in the noun phrase (NP = subject) and the verb phrase (VP V NP = verb / predicate object) as the immediate constituents of the sentence (S ), but is the verb with the NP ( subject and object ) is equal to. Thus, S receives a predicate - argument structure, as in the predicate logic. In addition, the GS set conditions ( presuppositions ) and formalized by Gottlob Frege implication notations that can not be modeled in generative syntax of the TG.

S         / | \      NP V NP     / | | | \ The cat ate the cake

• Unlike the TG GS shall include the claim, even linguistic context relations and speaking situations in their model, however, leads her to the limits of mathematical formalization and is therefore criticized by representatives of linguistic pragmatics.