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CONTENT Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………page 3 Introduction……………………………………………………………….....................page 4 Chapter 1. Syntax as opposed to morphology…………………………………………..page 6 Chapter 2. The sentence patterns of language…………………………………………..page 8 2.1. Grammatical or ungrammatical: the grammaticality of sentences…………..page 8 2.2. Ambiguity…………………………………………………………………..page 10 2.3. Grammatical relations………………………………………………………page 11 2.3.1. Grammatical relations in the sentence……………………………………page 13 2.3.2. Theta/θ – Theory. Thematic roles………………………………………...page 13 2.4. Sentence structure (constituent structure)…………………………………..page 16 2.5. Syntactic categories (word classes)………………………………………...page 19 2.6. Phrase structure trees……………………………………………………….page 21 2.7. Phrase structure rules……………………………………………………….page 24 2.8. The lexicon…………………………………………………………………page 28 2.8.1. Lexical insertion………………………………………………………….page 28 2.8.2. Subcategorisation………………………………………………………...page 28 2.9. Sentence relatedness……………………………………………………… page 30 2.9.1. Types of sentence relatedness…………………………………………....page 30 2.9.2. Transformational rules…………………………………………………...page 32 Chapter 3.Some approaches to syntax………………………………………………...page 34

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3.1. Descriptive grammars………………………………………………….....page 34 3.2. Immediate constituent analysis……………………………………….......page 35 3.3. The post-Bloomfieldian school: structuralist approach………………......page 36 3.4. Deep syntax………………………………………………………………page 36 3.4.1.Tagmemic theory :Tagmemics………………………………......page 36 3.4.2. Scale and category grammar…………………………………....page 37 3.4.3. Systemic grammar………………………………………………page 38 3.4.4. Stratificational grammar………………………………………...page 38 3.4.5.Case grammar……………………………………………………page 38 3.5. Generative transformational grammar……………………………………page 39 3.5.1 Generative grammar……………………………………………..page 39 3.5.2. Transformational grammar……………………………………...page 41 3.6. Functional grammar………………………………………………………page 42 3.7. Other theories……………………………………………………………..page 44 3.7.1 Government theory………………………………………………page 44 3.7.2. Binding theory…………………………………………………..page 46 3.7.3. X-Bar Theory………………………………………………........page 47 CONCLUSIONS……………………………………………………………………..page 51 REFERENCES…………………………………………………………………........page 53 REZUMAT/SUMMARY………………………………………………………........page 54

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ABSTRACT In linguistics, syntax is the study of the principles and rules for constructing sentences in natural languages. In my dissertation entitled „Traditional and modern approaches to syntax” I made an exploration of the English grammar in terms of syntax. It focuses on the interpretation of some modern theories in syntax, which have came to complete the scientific research of linguists since the last century. In the first Chapter I explained the relationship between syntax and morphology as opposite terms.Chapter two deals with the sentence patterns of language and the aim is to show what syntactic structure is and what the rules that determine syntactic structures are like and to illustrate the precise way in which success in constructing tree diagrams for complex sentences requires constant reference to syntactic rules as well as to the individual words that make up sentences. The last Chapter deals with the most straightforward treatment of syntax that is provided by descriptive grammars, other modern approaches to syntax are discussed in the sections of this chapter, namely, The post- Bloomfieldian school: the Structuralist approach, Tagmemic theory that is concerned primarily with grammatical analysis, Case Grammar that is a system of linguistic analysis, focusing on the link between the valence, or number of subjects, objects, etc., of a verb and the grammatical context it requires; Stratificational Grammar is a structural framework that aims to provide an account of the structure of language, the relationship between meaning and speech. Transformational genarative grammar

theory explains this arrangement and

organization of sentences. It means how correct and well-formed sentences are made or formed and other theories in syntax which define the kinds of relationships possible within a grammar, the

most important being X-bar theory. Others approaches to syntax are

represented by government theory, binding theory.

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“We know that the grammars that are in fact constructed vary only slightly among speakers of the same language, despite wide variations not only in intelligence but also in the conditions under which language is acquired.” (Chomsky 1972, p.79) INTRODUCTION The word syntax is used in linguistics with two meanings. First, it refers to a branch of linguistics (or grammar), which studies the regular patterns of communicative units, their structure and function. Second, syntax is the whole of linguistic phenomena that are involved in the building and use of communicative units. We may speak of linguistics as a definite field of studies only from the 19th century on. All linguistic phenomena haven't yet found reflections in modern linguistics, reflections that would be unequivocal and correspond to reality. Linguistics comprises several distinct theories, approaches, and points of view. They all more or less differ from each other. This is especially true for syntax, one of the more recent branches of linguistics. In modern syntax, albeit schematically, two main approaches may be distinguished: traditional syntax and structural (or structuralistic) syntax. Both main approaches to syntax, the traditional and the structural, continue to develop further, their theoretical foundations are defined more precisely, and the language material considered is enlarged. Therefore, for the time being it is not justified to adopt only one of them and reject the other. There is reason to expect that the achievements of the two approaches will be united in the future. Syntax, put simply, is the grammatical arrangement of each element of a sentence. It’s main concern is ensuring the coherence of your subject, verb and object, as well as the relationships that tie them together. Involving a logical sequence, it’s the framework from which you build sentences correctly. Each word we use in our language has a meaning. When we string words together to form a sentence, the goal is for the complete statement to relay a specific message. How

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these words are arranged and presented is usually dictated by syntax. The reader, who looks at these arranged words, uses syntax to determine what it means as well. Without the structure of a syntax, there is no point in putting words together to form a sentence – they wouldn’t make any sense anyway.

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Chapter 1.Syntax as opposed to morphology Syntax is a central component of human language. Language has often been characterized as a systematic correlation between certain types of gestures and meaning, as represented simplistically in Figure 1.1. For spoken language, the gestures are oral, and for signed language, they are manual. GESTURES

MEANING

Figure 1.1. Language as a correlation between gestures and meaning It is not the case that every possible meaning that can be expressed is correlated with a unique, unanalyzable gesture, be it oral or manual. Rather, each language has a stock of meaning-bearing elements and different ways of combining them to express different meanings, and these ways of combining them are themselves meaningful. The two English sentences: 1. Chris gave the notebook to Dana. 2. Dana gave the notebook to Chris; contain exactly the same meaning-bearing elements,

i.e. words, but they have different meanings because the words are combined differently in them. These different combinations fall into the realm of syntax; the two sentences differ not in terms of the words in them but rather in terms of their syntax. The term ‘syntax’ is from the Ancient Greek syntaxis, a verbal noun which literally means ‘arrangement’ or ‘setting out together’. Traditionally, it refers to the branch of grammar dealing with the ways in which words, with or without appropriate inflections, are arranged to show connections of meaning within the sentence. First and foremost, syntax deals with how sentences are constructed, and users of human languages employ a striking variety of possible arrangements of the elements in sentences. One of the most obvious yet important ways in which languages differ is the order of the main elements in a sentence. In English, for example, the subject comes before the verb and the direct object follows the verb. In any event there are problems. A function that is fulfilled by a single word in one case may be fulfilled elsewhere by a succession of words. Thus, where the English use two words, e.g. I give, some Romance languages do not usually use a subject pronoun (R. dau, It. do). Also, when referring to an action in the future, English speakers need an additional word 6

to indicate future tense, whereas speakers of some Romance languages do not; the Italian equivalent of the English three-word phrase I will give is the single word darò. The study of the formation of words and how they may change their form is called morphology. These examples illustrate the important relationship between syntax and morphology: something which may be expressed syntactically in some languages may be expressed morphologically in others. Syntax and morphology make up what is traditionally referred to as ‘grammar’; an alternative term for it is morphosyntax, which explicitly recognizes the important relationship between syntax and morphology. Thus a more complex picture of the nature of language emerges than that given in Figure 1.1; it is summarized in Figure 1.2.

GESTURES

ARRANGEMENT

MORPHOLOGY

MEANING

SYNTAX

Figure 1.2. Language as a correlation between gestures and meaning In terms of Figure 1.2, one could say that syntax makes possible the formulation of expressions with complex meanings out of elements with simple meanings. One of the defining features of human language is its unlimited nature; that is, the number of meaningful expressions that can be produced by users of a human language is potentially infinite, and this expressive potential comes from the combination of the basic meaningful elements with syntactic principles. Much of the interest in language in psychology and cognitive science comes from what the study of the cognitive mechanisms underlying language use and acquisition can reveal about the human mind.

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Chapter 2. The sentence patterns of language „To grammar even kings bow” J.B.Moliere, LES FEMMES SAVANTES,II, 1672 taken from Fromkin, Victoria & Rodman, Robert. 1998. An Introduction to Language. 6th Ed, New York: Thomson Heinle. Speakers and writers of any human language have many options when they compose each sentence they utter. English, for example, has been gifted with an enormous variety of sentence types. At first glance, each different sentence type may appear to mean exactly the same as every other type in the examples below so that one has the idea that there is an enormous amount of wasteful redundancy in the language. But that's not true. Each sentence has its own subtleties of emphasis and meaning. 2.1. Grammatical or ungrammatical : the grammaticality of sentences A central part of the description of what speakers do is characterizing the grammatical (or well-formed) sentences of a language and distinguishing them from ungrammatical or (ill-formed) sentences. Grammatical sentences are those that are in accord with the rules and principles of the syntax of a particular language, while ungrammatical sentences violate one or more syntactic rules or principles. For example, The teacher is reading a book is a grammatical sentence of English, while Teacher the book a reading is would not be. Ungrammatical sentences are marked with an asterisk, hence *Teacher the book a reading is. This sentence is ungrammatical because it violates some of the word order rules for English, that is (i) basic word order in English clauses is subject–verb–object, (ii) articles like the and a precede the noun they modify, and (iii) auxiliary verbs like is precede the main verb, in this case reading. It is important to note that these are English-specific syntactic rules. Well-formed sentences are those that are in accord with the syntactic rules of the language; this does not entail that they always make sense semantically. For example, the sentence the book is reading the teacher is nonsensical in terms of its meaning, but it violates no syntactic rules or principles of English; indeed, it has exactly the same syntactic structure as The teacher is reading a book.Hence it is grammatical (wellformed), despite being semantically odd.

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What grammaticality is based on: Grammaticality judgements are not idiosyncratic or capricious but are determined by rules that are shared by the speakers of a language. Unconscious knowledge of the syntactic rules of grammar permits speakers to make grammaticality judgements. The syntactic rules that account for the ability to make these grammaticality judgements include, in addition to rules of word order, other constraints. For example: (i) The boy found the ball.

(iii) *The boy found quickly.

(ii) *The boy found in the house.

(iv) The boy found the ball in the house.

Speakers of English will place an asterisk in front of the second and third sentences. These two sentences are ungrammatical because the rules specify that found must be followed directly by a direct object (a noun like ball) but not by an adverb (like in the house or quickly) Also consider the examples below: (i) *Ann slept the baby. (ii) Ann slept soundly. Sentence (i) is ungrammatical because the rules specify that the verb sleep occurs in a pattern different from find, in that it may be followed solely by an adverb (a word like soundly) but not by other kinds of phrases (direct objects) such as the baby. Sentences are not random strings of words. To be a sentence, words must conform to specific patterns determined by the syntactic rules of the language. “Colorless green ideas sleep furiously. This is a very interesting sentence, because it shows that syntax can be separated from semantics—that form can be separated from meaning. The sentence doesn’t seem to mean anything coherent, but it sounds like an English sentence.” ( Howard Lasnik, The Human Language: Program One)taken from Fromkin, Victoria & Rodman, Robert. 1998. An Introduction to Language. 6th Ed, New York: Thomson Heinle. What grammaticality is not based on: The ability to make grammaticality judgements does not depend on having heard the sentences before. You may never have heard or read the sentences (i) Enormous crickets in pink socks danced at the prom. (ii) Colourless green ideas sleep furiously. 9

But your syntactic knowledge tells you that they are grammatical. Grammaticality judgements do not depend on whether the sentences are meaningful or not, as shown by the sentences above (i) and (ii). For instance, sentence (ii) doesn’t seem to mean anything coherent, but it sounds like an English sentence, i.e. although the sentence does not make much sense, it is syntactically well-formed. On the other hand, you may understand ungrammatical sequences even though you know they are not well-formed. To most English speakers the sentence below *The boy quickly in the house the ball found. Is interpretable, or understood although those same speakers know that the word order is irregular. On the other hand, grammatical sentences may be uninterpretable if they include nonsense strings, that is, words with no agreed-on meaning, as shown by the first two lines of “Jabberwocky” by Lewis Carroll: ‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves / Did gyre and gimble in the wabe; Such nonsense poetry is amusing because the sentences comply with syntactic rules and sound like good English. Nor does grammaticality depend on the truth of sentences – if it did, lying would be impossible. Untrue sentences can be grammatical, for example, sentences discussing unicorns can be grammatical, and sentences referring to pregnant fathers can be grammatical. 2.2. Ambiguity Ambiguity is the property of being ambiguous, where a word, term, notation, sign, symbol, phrase, sentence, or any other form used for communication, is called ambiguous if it can be interpreted in more than one way. Ambiguity is different from vagueness, which arises when the boundaries of meaning are indistinct. Ambiguity is context-dependent: the same linguistic item (be it a word, phrase, or sentence) may be ambiguous in one context and unambiguous in another context. For a word, ambiguity typically refers to an unclear choice between different definitions as may be found in a dictionary. A sentence may be ambiguous due to different ways of parsing the same sequence of words. Linguists often distinguish between two types of ambiguities: the grammatical (or structural) ambiguity of phrases and sentences and the lexical ambiguity of words. 10

Grammatically ambiguous units admit the possibility of more than one structural interpretation: in new houses and shops, which could be analysed either as (i) new [houses and shops] (i.e. both are new) or [new houses] and shops (i.e. only the houses are new). In transformational ambiguity, the alternative semantic representations can be shown only by relating the ambiguous sentence to different structures. For example, Visiting relatives can be boring can mean both It is boring to visit relatives and Relatives who visit are boring. An analysis which demonstrates the ambiguity in a sentence is said to disambiguate the sentence. Lexical ambiguity: ambiguity which does not arise from the grammatical analysis of a sentence, but is due solely to the alternative meanings of an individual lexical item, is referred to as lexical ambiguity. Lexical ambiguity arises because of polysemy (words having more than one meaning) or homonymy (words having the same form, but different origins): e.g. I found the table fascinating (=’object of furniture’ or ‘table of figures’ – cf. polysemy). Also in: This will make you smart - the two interpretations of this sentence are due to the two meanings of ‘smart’: ‘clever’ or ‘burning sensation’. I need new glasses might mean something different to a short-sighted reader and a publican. In recent semantic discussion, a distinction is sometimes drawn between ‘ambiguity’ and ‘vagueness’: an ambiguous sentence is formulated as having more than one distinct structure; a vague sentence, on the other hand, permits an unspecifiable range of possible interpretations. For example, deciding on the implications of a negative sentence such as He didn’t hit the dog is a matter of vagueness, in this view, in that it is not possible to state specifically a fixed number of different underlying structures involved in its interpretation (What did he hit? Did he do something else to the dog?) 2.3. Grammatical relations

As an example of the role that grammatical relations can play in syntactic description, consider finite verb agreement in English. It is traditionally described as being triggered by the subject of the sentence. It is exemplified in (2.1). (2.1) a. The boy knows the answer. b. The boys know the answers. 11

How does one know that it is the subject NP rather than the direct object NP which triggers agreement? After all, in (2.1a) both NPs are singular and in (2.1b) both are plural. The answer can be seen clearly in (2.2). (2.2) a. The boy knows/*know the answers. b. The boys know/*knows the answer. In (2.2a), the subject NP is singular and the direct object NP is plural, and the verb shows singular rather than plural agreement; similarly in (2.2b), the subject NP is plural and the direct object is singular, and the verb shows plural rather than singular agreement. Hence it must be the subject, not the direct object, which triggers agreement. Suppose one were to say that it is not necessarily the subject which is the trigger but rather the first NP in the sentence; how would one show that this is not the correct analysis? The crucial examples which argue against this hypothesis are given in (2.3). (2.3) a. Those boys Chris does/*do not like. a′. That boy the girls do/*does not like. b. Which teacher do/*does the girls like? b′. Which students does/*do the teacher like? In these sentences the verb does not agree with the first NP in the sentence; rather, it agrees with the subject. When the initial NP is plural and the subject NP singular, as in (2.3a), (2.3b′), the verb shows singular agreement. Similarly, when the initial NP is singular and the subject plural, as in (2.3a′), (2.3b), the verb shows plural agreement. Note that the sentences in (2.3b), (2.3b′) show that the rule is not simply ‘the verb agrees with the immediately preceding NP’; while that is true in (2.1), (2.2) and (2.3a), (2.3a′), it is not true in these two sentences. Hence the simplest and most straightforward hypothesis is the initial one: in English a tensed verb agrees with the subject.

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2.3.1. Grammatical relations in the sentence In the syntactic structure of sentences, two distinct yet interrelated aspects must be distinguished. The first one has already been mentioned: the function of elements as subject and direct object in a sentence. ‘Subject’ and ‘direct object’ have traditionally been referred to as grammatical relations. Hence this kind of syntax will be referred to as ‘relational structure’. It includes more than just grammatical relations like subject and direct object; it also encompasses relationships like modifier–modified, e.g. tall building or walk slowly (tall, slowly = modifier, building, walk = modified) and possessor–possessed, e.g. Pat’s car (Pat’s = possessor, car = possessed). 2.3.2. Theta/θ – Theory. Thematic roles. Thematic theory, or theta theory, is a sub-theory of universal Grammar, which deals with the valency requirements of verbs. As I mentioned in the previous section, it incorporates a set of principles regulating the assignment of thematic roles. In this way, Riemsdijk (1986) defines theta theory as the basic logical notion “argument of”, a notion that any theory of Grammar must account for. He goes on to add that the aim of this theory is to determine which NP can be an argument of a verb. That’s why to designate arguments of a verb, terms as agent, goal, patient …are commonly used. It’s important to recognise that ‘theme’ is being used differently here from its use in functional grammar, where it has largely a discourse meaning as the first item in a clause. In theta theory ‘theme’ indicates one of a number of semantic roles which arguments fulfil. Clauses are seen as consisting of propositions, or logical statements, which require certain types of arguments in order to be acceptable sentences in English. The approach is similar in some respects to M.A.K. Halliday’s ‘participant, process, circumstance’ model in functional grammar, and indeed, some of the terms overlap, but whereas Halliday is principally concerned with transitivity, theta theory is more concerned with ‘agency’: who does what to whom. The essential elements of the theory differ somewhat from linguist to linguist, but the following are the commonly assumed theta-roles: (i) Theme (or patient) = entity undergoing the effect of some action: The cat died; (ii) Agent (or actor) = instigator of some action; the one who performs the action: 13

John threw the ball; (iii) Experiencer = entity experiencing some psychological state; one who perceives something: John was happy. (iv) Benefactive = entity benefiting from some action: Mary bought some chocolate for John. (v) Instrument = the means by which an action is performed: John dug the garden with a spade. (vi) Locative = place where an action takes It rained in London. (vii) Goal = The place towards which an action is directed: Mary passed the plate to John. (viii) Source = The place from which an action originates John returned from London. The value of incorporating thematic roles into a model of syntax is that it allows us to give a more principled account of the way in which linguistic items behave than relying simply on formal grammatical criteria. In the following pair of sentences, the phrase the vase fulfils the same grammatical role, that of subject, but two distinct thematic roles: (i) The vase shattered the glass. (ii) The vase shattered. In (i) the vase is the cause of the shattering, hence it performs the role of instrument, whereas in (ii) it is the entity which undergoes the effect of shattering, hence it acts as the theme, or patient. The difference of thematic status is reflected in a difference of selection restrictions. In (i) we can replace the vase with the noise, or a hidden flaw, but not in (ii). Analyzing the thematic structure of these two sentences enables us to reveal differences which are not reflected in their constituent structure (see Immediate constituent analysis). The meaning of a sentence is determined in part by the thematic roles of the noun phrases in relation to the verb. These semantic relationships indicate who, to whom, with whom/what, from which, etc. The noun phrase subject of a sentence and the constituents of a verb phrase are semantically related in various ways to the verb. The relations depend on the meaning of the particular verb. 14

For example, the NP the boy in The boy found a red brick is called the agent, or ‘doer’ of the action of finding. The NP a red brick is the theme that undergoes the action. Part of the meaning of find is that its subject is an agent and that its direct object is a theme. The NPs within a verb phrase whose head is the verb put have the relation of theme and goal. For example, in the sentence The boy put the red brick on the wall, the red brick is the theme and on the wall is the goal. The entire verb phrase is interpreted to mean that the theme of put changes its position to the goal. The subject of put is also an agent, so that in this sentence (The boy put the red brick on the wall) the boy performs the action. The knowledge speakers have about find and put may be revealed in their lexical entries: find, V – NP (Agent, Theme) put, V – NP, PP (Agent, Theme, Goal) The thematic roles are contained in parentheses. The first one states that the subject is an agent. The remaining thematic roles belong to the categories for which the verb is subcategorized. The direct object of both find and put will be a theme. The prepositional phrase for which put subcategorizes will be a goal. Our knowledge of verbs include their syntactic category, how they are subcategorized and the thematic roles

that their NP subject and object(s) have and this knowledge is

explicitly represented in the lexicon. Thematic roles are the same in sentences that are paraphrases. Thus, in both these sentences: The dog bit the stick. The stick was bitten by the dog. the dog is the agent and the stick is the theme. Thematic roles may remain the same in sentences that are not paraphrases, as in the following sentences: The boy opened the door with the key. The key opened the door. The door opened.

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In all 3 sentences, the door is the theme, the thing that gets opened. In the first two sentences, the key, despite the different structural positions, retains the thematic role of instrument. The three examples illustrate the fact that English allows many different thematic roles to be the subject of the sentence (that is, the first NP under the S). These sentences had as subjects an agent (the boy), an instrument (the key) and a theme (the door). The sentences below illustrate other kinds of subjects: This hotel forbids dogs. It seems that John has already left. In the first example, this hotel has the thematic role of location. In the second, the subject it is semantically empty and lacks a thematic role entirely. English prepositions indicate a number of thematic roles Thus, from and to often indicate the thematic roles of source and goal. Instrument is marked by with, location by prepositions such as on and in, possessor by of; agent, experiencer and causative by the preposition by in passive sentences. The role of theme is generally unaccompanied by a preposition, as its most common syntactic function is direct object. What has been called thematic roles in this section has sometimes been studied as case theory, devised by the American linguist Ch. Fillmore (1968, 1976) 2.4. Sentence structure(constituent structure)

“A unit forming part of a larger structure” (Chalker and Weiner 1998)taken from Fromkin, Victoria & Rodman, Robert. 1998. An Introduction to Language. 6th Ed, New York: Thomson Heinle. Syntactic rules determine determine the order of words in a structure and how the words are grouped. The words in the sentence The child found the puppy may be grouped into (The child) and (found the puppy) corresponding to the subject and predicate of the sentence. A further division gives (the child) (found) (the puppy) and finally the individual words (the) (child) (found) (the) (puppy).

It is easier to see the parts and subparts of the sentence in a tree diagram:

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The child found the puppy

The child

The

child

found the puppy

found

the puppy

The

puppy

The tree is upside down with its ‘root’ being the entire sentence: The child found the puppy and its ‘leaves’ being the individual words the, child, found, the, puppy. The tree conveys the same information as the nested parentheses, but more clearly. The groupings and sub-groupings reflect the hierarchical structure of the tree. The tree diagram shows among other things that the phrase found the puppy is naturally divided into two branches, the two groups, found and the puppy. A different division, say, found the, and puppy, is unnatural. The natural groupings of a sentence are called constituents. Various linguistic tests reveal the constituents of a sentence. For example, the set of words that can be used to answer a question is a constituent. So in answer to the question “what did you find?” a speaker might answer, the puppy, but not found the. Pronouns can also substitute for natural groups. In answer to the question “where did you find the puppy?” a speaker may say, “ I found him in the park.” There are also words such as do that can take the place of the entire expression found the puppy, as in “ John found the puppy and so did Bill”, or “John found the puppy and Bill did too”. Constituents can also be “relocated” as in the following examples. It was the puppy the child found The puppy was found by the child

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In the first example the constituent the puppy is relocated; in the second example both the puppy and the child are relocated. In all such rearrangements the constituents the puppy and the child remain intact. Found the does not remain intact, because it is not a constituent. In the sentence the child found the puppy, the natural groupings or constituents are the subject the child, the predicate found the puppy, and the direct object the puppy. Some verbs take a direct object and prepositional phrase. The child put the puppy in the garden. We can use our tests to show that in the garden is also a constituent , as follows: 1. Where did the child put the puppy?

In the garden.

2. The child put the puppy there. 3. In the garden is where the child put the puppy. 4. It was in the garden that the child put the puppy.

In (1) in the garden is an answer to a question. In (2) the word there can substitute for a phrase in the garden. In (3) and (4) in the garden has been relocated. Our knowledge of the constituent structure may be graphically represented as a tree structure. The tree structure for the sentence The child put the puppy in the garden is as it follows: The child put the puppy in the garden

The child The

put the puppy in the garden

child

put

the puppy

The

puppy

in the garden in

the garden The garden

Every sentence in a language is associated with one or more constituent structures. If a sentence has more than one constituent structure, it is ambiguous, and each tree will 18

correspond to one of the possible meanings. Multiple tree structures can account for structural ambiguity, as in the following examples: synthetic buffalo hides

synthetic

synthetic buffalo hides

buffalo hides

buffalo

synthetic buffalo

hides

synthetic

hides

buffalo

2.5. Syntactic categories (word classes)

Each of the groupings in the tree diagram The child found the puppy is a member of a large family of similar expressions. For example, the child belongs to a family that includes a police officer, your neighbour, this yellow cat, he, and countless others. Each member of this family can be substituted for the child without affecting the grammaticality of the sentence although the meanings of course would change. The child found the puppy. A police officer found the puppy. Your neighbour found the puppy. This yellow cat found the puppy. He found the puppy. A family of expressions that can substitute for one another without loss of grammaticality is called a syntactic category. The child, a police officer and so on, belong to the syntactic category Noun Phrase (NP), one of several syntactic categories in English and every other language in the world. Noun Phrases may function as the subject or as various objects in a sentence. They often contain some form of a noun or proper noun, but may consist of a pronoun alone, or even contain a clause or a sentence. Even though a proper noun like John and pronouns such as he 19

and him are single words, they are technically NPs, because they pattern like NPs in being able to fill a subject or object or other NP slot. John found the puppy. He found the puppy. The puppy loved him. The puppy loved John. NPs that are more complex are illustrated by: Romeo who was a Montague loved Juliet who was a Capulet. Part of the syntactic component of grammar is the specification of the syntactic categories in the language, since this constitutes part of a speaker’s knowledge. That is, speakers of English know that only items (a), (b), (e), (f), (g), and (i) in the following list are Noun Phrases even if they have never heard the term before. 1.

(a) a bird

(f) it

(b) the red banjo

(g) john

(c) have a nice day

(h) went

(d) with a balloon

(i) that the earth is round

(e) the woman who was laughing As we discussed earlier, you can test this claim by inserting each expression into three contexts: “Who discovered…….?”, “………was heard by everyone,” and “What I heard was ……?”. Only those sentences which NPs can be inserted are grammatical, because only NPs can function as subjects and objects. There are other syntactic categories. The expression found the puppy is a Verb Phrase (VP). Verb Phrases always contain a Verb (V) and may contain other categories such as a Noun Phrase (NP) or Prepositional Phrase (PP), which is a preposition followed by a Noun Phrase. In (2) the VPs are those phrases that can complete the sentence “ The child…………..”. 2. (a) saw a clown

(e) is smart 20

(b) a bird

(f) found the cake

(c) slept

(g) found the cake in the cupboard

(d) smart

(h) realized that the earth was round

Inserting (a), (c), (e), (f), (g), and (h) will produce grammatical sentences, whereas the insertion of (b) or (d) would result in an ungrammatical string. Thus, in list 2 (a), (c), (e), (f), (g), and (h) are Verb Phrases. Other syntactic categories such as: Sentence (S), Determiner (Det), Adjective (Adj), Noun (N), Pronoun (Pro), Preposition (P), Prepositional Phrase (PP) Adverb (Adv), Auxiliary Verb (Aux) and Verb (V), but this is not a complete list. Some of these syntactic categories (word classes) have traditionally been called parts of speech. All languages have such syntactic categories. In fact, categories such as Noun, Verb, and Noun Phrases are present in the grammars of all human languages. Speakers know the syntactic categories of their language, even if they do not know the technical terms. Our knowledge of the syntactic classes is revealed when we substitute equivalent phrases, as we just did in examples (1) and (2), and when we use the various syntactic tests just discussed. In addition to syntactic tests, there is experimental evidence for constituent structure. In these experiments subjects listen to sentences that have clicking noises inserted into them at random points. In some cases the click occurs at a constituent boundary, for example, between the subject NP and the VP. In other sentences, the click is inserted in the middle of a constituent, for example, between a determiner and an NP. The subjects are then asked to report where the click occurred. There were two important results: First, subjects noticed the click and recalled its location best when it occurred at a constituent boundary. Second, clicks that occurred inside the constituent were reported to have occurred between the constituents. In other words, subjects displaced the clicks and put them at constituent boundaries. These results show that speakers perceive sentences in chunks corresponding to grammatical constituents. This argues for the psychological reality of constituent structure.( J. Fodor and T. Bever. 1965 “The Psychological Reality of Linguistic Segments,” Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 4:414-20. 2.6. Phrase structure trees

21

„Who climbs the Grammar-Tree distinctly knows/Where Noun and Verb and Participle grows.” John Dryden taken from Fromkin, Victoria & Rodman, Robert. 1998. An Introduction to Language. 6th Ed, New York: Thomson Heinle.

The following tree diagram provides labels for each of the constituents of the sentence The child put the puppy in the garden. These labels show that the entire sentence belongs to the syntactic category of Sentence, that the child and the puppy are Noun Phrases, that put the puppy is a Verb Phrase, that in the garden is a Prepositional Phrase, and so on. The child put the puppy in the garden S

The child

put the puppy in the garden

NP

The Det

VP

child N

put the puppy V

in the garden

NP

PP

The puppy

in

Det

P

N

the garden NP The Det

garden N

A tree diagram with syntactic category information is called a phrase structure tree, sometimes called a constituent structure tree. This tree shows that a sentence is both a linear string of words and a hierarchical structure with phrases nested in phrases. Phrase structure trees are graphic representations of a speaker’s knowledge of the sentence structure in their language.

22

Therefore, three aspects of speakers’ syntactic knowledge of sentence structure are disclosed in phrase structure trees: i. The linear order of words in the sentence, ii. The groupings of words into particular syntactic categories, iii. The hierarchical structure of the syntactic categories: e.g., a sentence is composed of a Noun Phrase followed by a Verb Phrase, a Verb Phrase is composed of a Verb that may be followed by a Noun Phrase, and so on. A phrase structure tree that explicitly reveals these properties can represent every sentence in English and of every human language. Notice, however, that the phrase structure tree above is correct, but redundant. . The word ‘child’ is repeated three times in the tree, ‘puppy’ is repeated three times, and so on. We can streamline the tree by writing the words only once at the bottom of the diagram. Only the syntactic categories to which the words belong need to remain at the higher levels. S

NP

Det

The

N

child

VP

V

put

NP

Det

PP

N

P

The puppy in

NP

Det The

N garden

No information is lost in this simplified version. The syntactic category of each individual word appears immediately above that word. In this way, ‘the’ is shown to be a

23

Determiner, ‘child’ a noun, and so on. Words occur in trees under labels that correspond to their syntactic category. Nouns are under N, prepositions under P, and so on. We have not given definitions of these syntactic categories. Traditional definitions usually refer to meaning and are either imprecise or wrong. For example, a noun is often defined as “a person, place or thing”. However, in the sentence seeing is believing, seeing and believing are nouns but are neither persons, nor places, nor things. Syntactic categories are better defined in terms of the syntactic rules of the grammar. For example, defining a noun as “the head of an NP”, or “ a grammatical unit that occurs with a determiner,” or “ can be relocated in passive sentences” are more accurate characterizations. The larger syntactic categories, such as Verb Phrases, are identified as consisting of all the syntactic categories and words below that point, or node, in the tree. The VP in the above phrase structure tree consists of syntactic category nodes V and NP,PP, and the words put, the, puppy, in, the, and garden. Since the puppy can be traced up the tree to a PP, this constituent is a Prepositional Phrase. The phrase structure tree reflects the speaker’s intuitions about the natural groupings of words in the sentence. The phrase structure tree also states implicitly what combinations of words are not syntactic categories. For example, since there is no node above the words put and the to connect them , the two words do not constitute a syntactic category, reflecting our earlier judgments. The phrase structure tree also shows that some syntactic categories are composed of other syntactic categories. The sentence The child put the puppy in the garden consists of a Noun Phrase – the child – and a Verb Phrase – put the puppy in the garden. The Verb Phrase consists of the verb put and a Noun Phrase - the puppy, and the Prepositional Phrase in the garden. Together, the Determiner the and the Noun puppy constitute a Noun Phrase, but individually neither is an NP. The Prepositional Phrase contains a Preposition in and the NP the garden. Every higher node is said to dominate all the categories beneath it. VP dominates V, NP, and PP, and also dominates Det, N, P and PP. A node is said to immediately dominate the categories one level below it. VP immediately dominates V, NP, and PP. Categories that are immediately dominated by the same node are sisters. V, NP, and PP are sisters in the sentence The child put the puppy in the garden.

24

2.7. Phrase structure rules “Everyone who is master of the language he speaks…may form new…phrases, provided they coincide with the genius of the language” (Michaelis, Disertation, 1769) taken from Fromkin, Victoria & Rodman, Robert. 1998. An Introduction to Language. 6th Ed, New York: Thomson Heinle. A phrase structure tree is a formal device for representing the knowledge that a speaker has of the structure of sentences in his language. When we speak, we are not aware that we are producing sentences with such structure, but controlled experiments show that we use them in speech production and comprehension. When we look at phrase structure tree that represent the sentences of English, certain patterns emerge. In ordinary sentences, the S always subdivides into NP Aux VP. As we said earlier, NPs always contains Nouns; VPs always contain Verbs; PPs consist of a Preposition followed by a Noun Phrase; and APs consist of an Adjective possibly followed by a complement. Of all logically possible tree structures, few actually occur, just as not all word combinations constitute grammatical phrases or sentences. For example, a non-occurring tree structure in English is: NP

N

Det

boy

the

The speaker of a language knows whether any sentence or phrase is a possible or impossible structure in her language. The structure given in the preceding tree is not possible in English. Just as a speaker cannot have an infinite list of sentences in her head, so she cannot have an infinite set of phrase structures trees in her head. Rather, a speaker’s knowledge of the permissible and impermissible structures must exist as a finite set of rules that “generate”, or provide a tree for, any sentence in the language. These are phrase structure rules. Phrase

25

structure rules specify the structures of a language precisely and concisely. They express the regularities of the language, such as the head complement order, and other relationships.

For example, in English a Noun Phrase may simply contain a Determiner followed by a Noun. One of the several allowable NP subtrees looks like this: NP

Det The

N bus

The phrase structure rule that makes this explicit is:

NP Det N

This rule conveys two facts: A Noun Phrase can contain a Determiner followed by a Noun. A Determiner followed by a Noun is a Noun Phrase. To the left of the arrow is the category whose components appear on the right side. The right side of the arrow also shows the linear of these components. Phrase structure rules make explicit speakers’ knowledge of the order of words and the grouping of words into syntactic categories. An NP may also contain a complement, as in the example a picture of Mary or the destruction of Rome. We can accommodate this fact by revising the rule to include an optional Prepositional Phrase. The parentheses around the PP indicate that it is optional. Not all NPs in the language have PPs inside them. NP

Det N (PP) This revised rule says that an NP can contain a Det followed by an optional PP. The phrase structure trees of the previous section show that the following phrase

structure rules are also part of the grammar of English. 1. VP

V NP 26

2. VP

V NP PP

Rules 1 and 2 can be summed up in one statement: A Verb Phrase may be a Verb followed by a Noun Phrase, which may or may not be followed by a Prepositional Phrase. By putting parentheses around the optional element, we can abbreviate rules 1 and 2 to a single rule: VP

V NP (PP) In fact, the NP is also optional, as shown in the following trees: S

NP

Aux

Det

N

The

baby

VP V

past

slept

S

NP Det

Aux

N

The men

VP V

past

fled

PP

P

from

27

NP

Det

N

the

posse

In the first case the Verb Phrase consists of a Verb alone, corresponding to the rule VP V; and in the second case we have a Verb Phrase consisting of a Verb plus a Prepositional Phrase, corresponding to the rule VP

V PP. All the facts about the Verb Phrase we have

seen so far are explicit in the single rule: VP

V (NP) (PP) This rule states that a Verb Phrase may consist of a Verb followed optionally by a

Noun Phrase and/or a Prepositional Phrase. Other rules of English are: S

NP Aux VP

PP

P NP

AP

Adj (PP) 2.8.

The lexicon

Speakers of any language know thousands of words. They know how to pronounce them in all contexts, they know their meaning and they know how to combine them in Phrases or Sentences, which means that they know their syntactic category. All this knowledge is combined in the component of the grammar called the lexicon. 2.8.1. Lexical insertion Together with the phrase structure rules, the lexicon provides the information needed for complete, well-formed phrase structure trees. The phrase structure rules account for the entire tree except for the words at the bottom. The words in the tree belong to the same syntactic categories that appear immediately above them. Through lexical insertion words of the specified category are chosen from the lexicon and put into the tree. Only words that are specified as verbs in the lexicon are inserted under a Node labelled Verb, and so on. Words such as love, which belong to two (or more) categories, have separate entries in the lexicon, or are marked for both categories. 2.8.2.Subcategorization

28

The lexicon represents the knowledge speakers have about the vocabulary of their language including the syntactic category of words and what elements may co-occur together expressed as subcategorization restrictions. The lexicon contains more syntactic information than merely the lexical category of each word. If it did not, speakers of English would be unable to make the following grammaticality distinctions: (i) The boy found the ball. (ii) *The boy found quickly. (iii) *The boy found in the house. (iv) The boy found the ball in the house. The verb find is a transitive verb. A transitive verb must be followed by a Noun Phrase, its direct object. This additional specification is called subcategorization and is also included in the lexical entry of each word. Most words in the lexicon are subcategorized for certain contexts. Subcategorization accounts for the ungrammaticality of the following sentences: (i) *Ann put the milk. (ii) * Jane slept the baby. The verb put is a transitive verb which occurs with both a Noun Phrase (its direct object) and a Prepositional Phrase, as in: (i) Ann put the milk on the table. (ii) Ann put the milk in the refrigerator. Sleep is an intransitive verb, so it cannot be followed by a Noun Phrase. This information is included as the subcategorization of each word. Other categories besides verbs are subcategorized. For example, within the NP, if the Determiner is lacking (i.e. there is no article), only a plural noun (or a proper name) may be inserted (i); and if the Determiner is a (the indefinite article), only a singular noun may be inserted (iii). This accounts for the following: (i) Puppies love milk.

29

(ii) *Puppy loves milk. (iii) A puppy loves milk. (iv) *A puppies love milk. Subcategorization within the NP affects individual nouns. Belief is subcategorized for both a Prepositional Phrase (PP) and a Sentence (S), as shown by the following two examples: (i) The belief in freedom of speech (ii) The belief that freedom of speech is a basic right. Knowledge about subcategorization may be accounted for in the lexicon as follows: A fragment of the lexicon put, V, ------- NP, PP

Comments:

put is a transitive Verb which must be followed by both an NP and a PP within the Verb Phrase

find, V, ------- NP

find is a transitive Verb which must be followed by an NP within the Verb Phrase

sleep, V, -------

sleep is an intransitive verb which must not be followed by any category within the Verb Phrase

belief, N -------(PP), S belief is a Noun which may be followed by either a PP or an S within the Noun Phrase

2.9.Sentence relatedness “Most wonderful of all are…[sentences], and how they make friends one with another.” (O .Henry, as modified by a syntactician) taken from Fromkin, Victoria & Rodman, Robert. 1998. An Introduction to Language. 6th Ed, New York: Thomson Heinle. 2.9.1. Types of sentence relatedness

30

“ The structure of every sentence is a lesson in logic”. (John Stuart Mill) cited in Fromkin, Victoria & Rodman, Robert. 1998. An Introduction to Language. 6th Ed, New York: Thomson Heinle. Sentences may be related in various ways. For example, they may have the same phrase structure, but differ in meaning because they contain different words. Two sentences with different meanings may contain the same words in the same order, and differ only in structure, like the boy saw the man with the telescope. These are cases of structural ambiguity. Two sentences may differ in structure, possibly with small differences in grammatical morphemes, but with no difference in meaning: The father wept silently.

The father silently wept.

Mary hired Bill.

Bill was hired by Mary.

I know that you know.

I know you know.

Two sentences may have structural differences that correspond systematically to meaning differences. The boy is sleeping.

Is the boy sleeping?

The boy can sleep.

Can the boy sleep?

The boy will sleep.

Will the boy sleep?

Auxiliaries are very important in forming certain types of sentences in English, including questions. In questions, the auxiliary appears at the beginning of the sentence. This difference in position is not accounted for by the phrase structure rules, which specify that in a sentence the NP comes first, followed by Aux, followed by VP. We could easily add a phrase structure rule to our mini-grammar that would generate the questions above. It would look like the following: S

Aux NP VP Although such a rule might do the job of producing the right word order, it would fail

to capture the generalization that interrogatives are systematically related ( in both form and 31

meaning) to their declarative counterparts. For example, the declarative sentence John is sleeping is well formed, as is the question Is John sleeping? The declarative sentence The rock is sleeping is semantically odd, as is the question Is the rock sleeping? A speaker of English will be able to immediately provide the interrogative counterpart to any declarative sentences that we present. Phrase structure rules account for much syntactic knowledge, but they do not account for the fact that certain sentence types in the language relate systematically to other sentence types. 2.9.2. Transformational rules A way to capture the relationship between a declarative and a question is to allow the phrase structure rules to generate the structure corresponding to the declarative sentence, and have another formal device, called transformational rule, move the auxiliary in front of the subject. The rule “Move Aux” is formed as follows: Take the first auxiliary verb following the subject NP an move it to the left of the subject. For example: The boy is sleeping

Is the boy ___sleeping

The rule takes a basic structure generated by the phrase structure rules and derives a second tree ( the dash represents the position from which a constituent has been moved) : S NP Det

Aux

N

The boy

S VP

Aux

V is

sleeping

is

NP

VP

Det N

V

the

boy

Questions are generated in two steps. 1. The phrase structure rules generate a basic structure. 2. Aux movement applies to produce the derived structure.

32

sleeping

The basic structures of sentences, also called deep structures, are specified by the phrase structure rules. Variants on those basic sentence structures are derived via transformations. By generating questions in two steps, we are claiming that for speakers there is a relationship between a question and its corresponding statement. The transformational rule is a formal way of representing this relationship. The structures that result from the application of transformational rules are called surface structures. The phonological rule of the language ( pronunciation rule) apply to surface structures. If no transformations apply, then deep structure and surface structure are the same. If transformations apply, then surface structure is the result after all transformations have had their effect. Much syntactic knowledge that is not expressed by phrase structure rules is accounted for by transformations, which can alter phrase structure trees by moving, adding, or deleting elements. Other sentence types that are transformationally related are: Active- passive: The cat chased the mouse

The mouse was chased by the cat

There sentences: There was a man on the roof

A man was on the roof

PP preposing: The astronomer saw the quasar with the telescope

With the telescope, the astronomer

saw the quasar In conclusion, to capture the knowledge speakers have about the syntax of their language, the grammar requires at a minimum, phrase structure rules, a lexicon richly endowed with speakers’ knowledge about individual words and a set of transformational rules describing the structure dependent patterning that occurs throughout the language.

33

Chapter 3.Some approaches to syntax The last 10 years of linguistics have seen the emergence of a number of distinct approaches to syntax. Though these approaches have the same announced goal—namely, to understand the principles according to which sentences are organized—they differ radically in their philosophical outlook, their specific aims and methods, and their assumptions about how syntax relates to meaning and to communicative function. 3.1. Descriptive grammars “They are no primitive languages. The great and abstract ideas of Christianity can be discussed even by wretched Greenlanders.” (Johann Peter Sueemilch. 1756, in a paper delivered before the Prussian Academy )taken from Fromkin, Victoria & Rodman, Robert. 1998. An Introduction to Language. 6th Ed, New York: Thomson Heinle. The grammar of a language consists of the sounds and sounds patterns, the basic units of meaning such as words, and the rules to combine all of these to form sentences with the desired meaning. The grammar, then, is what we know. It represents our linguistic competence. To understand the nature of language we must understand the nature of grammar, and in particular, the internalized, unconscious set of rules that is part of every grammar of every language. Every human being who speaks a language knows its grammar. When linguists wish to describe a language, they attempt to describe the grammar of the language that exists in the minds of its speakers. There will be some differences among speakers’ knowledge, but there must be shared knowledge too. The shared knowledge—the common parts of the grammar— 34

makes it possible to communicate through language. To the extent that the linguist’s description is a true model of the speakers’ linguistic capacity, it is a successful description of the grammar and of the language itself. Such a model is called a descriptive grammar. It does not tell you how you should speak; it describes your basic linguistic knowledge. It explains how it is possible for you to speak and understand, and it tells what you know about the sounds, words, phrases, and sentences of your language. One of the most widely used of such grammars is R. Quirk et al.’s, A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language (1985). The procedure adopted by descriptive grammars is quite different from that used by prescriptive grammars, which attempt to lay down rules about how people ought to speak and write rather than how they actually do. Much of the terminology of the descriptive approach is to be found in traditional grammar, which is similarly concerned with analysing phrases and clauses. But modern descriptive approaches have taken account of recent developments in linguistics at a more theoretical level. 3.2. Immediate constituent analysis “One of the parts which a linguist unit is immediately divisible, by a process of immediate constituent analysis.” IC Chalker and Weiner taken from Fromkin, Victoria & Rodman, Robert. 1998. An Introduction to Language. 6th Ed, New York: Thomson Heinle.

The modern approach to syntax begins with the development of more explicit techniques of grammatical analysis, of which the most important was Immediate constituent (IC) analysis. This term was introduced by L. Bloomfield in his book Language. The smaller forms into which a larger form may be analyzed are its constituents, and the larger form is a construction. For example, the phrase “poor John” is a construction analyzable into, or composed of, theconstituents “poor” and “John.” Because there is no intermediate unit of which “poor” and “John” are constituents that is itself a constituent of the construction “poor John,” the forms “poor” and “John” may be described not only as constituents but also as immediate constituents of “poor John.” Similarly, the phrase “lost his watch” is composed of three word forms—“lost,” “his,” and “watch”—all of which may be described asconstituents of the construction. Not all of them, however, are its immediate constituents . The forms “his” and “watch” combine to make the intermediate construction 35

“his watch”; it is this intermediate unit that combines with “lost” to form the larger phrase “lost his watch.” The immediate constituents of “lost his watch” are “lost” and “his watch”; the immediate constituents of “his watch” are the forms “his” and “watch.” By the constituent structure of a phrase or sentence is meant the hierarchical organization of the smallest forms of which it is composed (its ultimateconstituents ) into layers of successively more inclusive units. Viewed in this way, the sentence “Poor John lost his watch” is more than simply a sequence of five word forms associated with a particular intonation pattern. It is analyzable into the immediateconstituents “poor John” and “lost his watch,” and each of these phrases is analyzable into its own immediate constituents and so on, until, at the last stage of the analysis, the ultimate constituents of the sentence are reached. The constituent structure of the whole sentence is represented by means of a tree diagram:

Poor

John

lost his

watch

3.3. The post- Bloomfieldian school: Structuralist approach Bloomfield was strongly influenced by Wundt's psychology of language. In 1933, however, he published a drastically revised and expanded version with the new title Language; this book dominated the field for the next 30 years. In it Bloomfield explicitly adopted a behaviouristic approach to the study of language, eschewing in the name of scientific objectivity all reference to mental or conceptual categories. Of particular consequence was his adoption of the behaviouristic theory of semantics according to which meaning is simply the relationship between a stimulus and a verbal response. Because science was still a long way from being able to give a comprehensive account of most stimuli, no significant or interesting results could be expected from the study of meaning for some considerable time, and it was preferable, as far as possible, to avoid basing the grammatical analysis of a language on semantic considerations. Bloomfield's followers pushed even further 36

the attempt to develop methods of linguistic analysis that were not based on meaning. One of the most characteristic features of “post-Bloomfieldian” American structuralism, then, was its almost complete neglect of semantics. 3.4.”Deep” syntax 3.4.1.Tagmenic theory :Tagmenics Tagmemic theory is concerned primarily with grammatical analysis and is especially associated with Kenneth Lee Pike. It is an offshoot of structuralism. Structuralism ignored functions of a linguistic form and concentrated only on form. Tagmemics fuses together the form as well as the function of a linguistic entity. According to this approach, utterances can be analyzed simultaneously at three interpenetrating levels, where each level represents a hierarchy of units. These levels are lexical (with the minimum unit being morpheme), phonological (having phoneme as the minimum unit), grammatical ( in which the minimum unit is tagmeme). The grammatical component is a series of syntactic statements concerning sentence, clause, phrase, and word level structures. The lexicon lists the formal unit of language while phonological components give the phonemic sentence a phonetic realization in the language. Pike rejected the idea of a sentence as being the minimum unit of grammar and recommended a hierarchical order and labeling. It has three semi-autonomous but interlocking levels or modes -- phonology, grammar and lexicon. It stresses the hierarchical ordering of grammatical units into ranks of levels -- morphemes, words, phrases, clauses, sentences, paragraphs, and discourses. Immediate Constituent analysis of the structaralists insists just on binary cuts, but tagmemics always goes in favor of string constituent analysis, and have many cuts. Tagmemics, unlike a structural analysis asks for the function of the categories and not merely their naming. It is a "slot and filler grammar"; a slot being a position in construction frame. The filler class is the co-relation between a grammatical function like subject and class of fillers like nouns that can fill that function. But neither the slot nor the filler itself is important, it is the tagmeme which is significant. The slot is the function and filler being the category. A tagmeme, therefore, is the co-relation of a slot and the class of items that can occur in that slot. Hence we have sentence level tagmemes, clause level tagmemes, phrase level tagmemes, word level tagmemes and morpheme level tagmemes. 37

3.4.2. Scale and category grammar A very similar theory, in some respects, is that associated primarily with the British linguist M.A.K. Halliday. The theory is known as scale and category grammar. The reason for the labels ‘scale’ and ‘category’ is that they refer to the two basic ideas underlying the theory: the best way of accounting for language’s structure was by postulating four major theoretical categories, and relating them via various scales of abstraction. The categories comprised class (covering concepts such as ‘verb’ and ‘noun’), unit (covering concepts such as ‘sentence’ and ‘clause’), structure (covering concepts such as ‘subject’ and ‘predicate’), and system (covering concepts such as the set of ‘personal pronouns’ or ‘tenses’). 3.4.3. Systemic grammar More recently, M. A. K. Halliday has developed a concept of systemic grammar, which would now be considered a quite distinct model. As its title suggests, it is based on the idea of system, which was a category of the early approach. This idea suggests that at any given place in a structure, the language allows for a choice among a small, fixed set of possibilities (we can have the/this/ my/ a…man, for instance); and it is very similar to the Saussurean concept of paradigmatic relationships. Language is viewed as a series of ‘system networks’, each network representing the choices associated with a given type of constituent (e.g. clause system network, nominal group system network, and so on). In this approach, it is the clause system which is taken as the point of departure in analysis, not (as in most other models) the sentence. 3.4.4. Stratificational grammar Another theory is stratificational grammar developed by S. Lamb in his book entitled Outline of Stratificational Grammar (1966). The theory is called ‘stratificational’ because one of its chief features is its model of linguistic structure in terms of several structural layers, or strata. Language for Lamb – as for Halliday - is best viewed as a system of complex relationships which relates sounds (or, of course, their written counterparts) to meanings. These relationships are not all of the same kind, however, but break down into more restricted sub-systems, each of which has its own structural organization; one sub-system operates at each stratum. There are three main strata hypothesized for all languages, ‘semology’, ‘grammar’ and ‘phonology’; and these are subdivided in various ways to produce further systems. 38

3.4.5. Case grammar Case grammar refers to an approach to grammatical analysis devised by the American linguist Ch. Fillmore in the late 1960s, within the general orientation of generative grammar. The approach recognizes a set of syntactic functions (‘cases’) in the analysis of a sentence, giving these an interpretation in terms of the semantic roles that these functions express, such as agentive, dative, and locative. By focusing on syntactic functions, it was felt that several important kinds of semantic relationship could be represented, which it would otherwise be difficult or impossible to capture. A set of sentences such as The key opened the door, The door was opened by / with the key, The door opened, The man opened the door with a key, etc. illustrate several ‘stable’ semantic roles, despite the varying surface grammatical structures. In each case the key is ‘instrumental’ case, the door is the entity affected by the action, and so on. The term ‘case’ is used because of the similarity with several of the traditional meanings covered by this term, but the deep structure cases recognized by the theory do not systematically correspond with anything in the surface morphology or syntax. The original proposal set up six cases (agentive, instrumental, dative, factitive, objective and locative) and gave rules for their combination in defining the use of verbs. Later, other cases were suggested (source, goal). Case grammar exercised considerable influence on subsequent developments in linguistic theory. 3.5. Generative transformational grammar In the 1950s the school of linguistic thought known as transformational-generative grammar received wide acclaim through the works of Noam Chomsky. Chomsky postulated a syntactic base of language (called deep structure), which consists of a series of phrasestructure rewrite rules, i.e., a series of (possibly universal) rules that generates the underlying phrase-structure of a sentence, and a series of rules (called transformations) that act upon the phrase-structure to form more complex sentences. The end result of a transformationalgenerative grammar is a surface structure that, after the addition of words and pronunciations, is identical to an actual sentence of a language. All languages have the same deep structure, but they differ from each other in surface structure because of the application of different rules for transformations, pronunciation, and word insertion. Another important distinction made in transformational-generative grammar is the difference between language competence 39

(the subconscious control of a linguistic system) and language performance (the speaker's actual use of language). Although the first work done in transformational-generative grammar was syntactic, later studies have applied the theory to the phonological and semantic components of language. 3.5.1. Generative grammar Is a notion that was developed in 1950s by Noam Chomsky. Although numerous scholars disagreed with Chomsky’s claims he gained many supporters and the idea was both developed and challenged at the same time. His works have exerted considerable influence on psycholinguistics, cognitive linguistics, applied linguistics as well as language methodology, and with time ‘generative grammar’ received broader meaning than it initially had. Based partially on mathematical equations generative grammar is a set of rules that provide a framework for all the grammatically possible sentences in a language, excluding those which would be considered ungrammatical. A classical generative grammar consists of four elements: •

A limited number of nonterminal signs;

•

A beginning sign which is contained in the limited number of nonterminal signs;

•

A limited number of terminal signs;

•

A finite set of rules which enable rewriting nonterminal signs as strings of terminal signs.

The rules could be applied in a free way and the only requirement is that the final result must be a grammatically correct sentence. What is more, generative grammar is recursive, which means that any output of application of rules can be the input for subsequent application of the same rule. That should enable generating sentences as the daughter ofthe father of the brother of his cousin. Chomsky considered language to be a species-specific property which is a part of the human mind. Chomsky studied the Internal-language, a mental faculty for language. He also wanted to account for the linguistic competence of native speakers and the linguistic knowledge of language present in language users’ minds. As he argued: •

People know which sentences are grammatically well formed in their native language 40

•

They have this knowledge also of previously unheard sentences

•

So they must rely on mentally represented rules and not only on memory

•

Generative grammars might be regarded as models of mentally represented rules

•

The ability to acquire such sets of rules is most probably uniquely human.

Moreover, Chomsky argued that people posses a kind of Language Faculty which is a part of human natural biological qualities. The innate linguistic knowledge that enables practically any child to learn any of about 6000 existing languages (at a given point in time) is sometimes known as the Universal Grammar. 3.5.2.Transformational grammar Is an approach to the use of grammar in communications that involves a logical and analytical process to fully grasp the meaning behind the words selected. From this perspective, transformational grammar goes beyond the process of structural grammar, which tends to focus on the proper construction of sentences as the device for communication. Along with sentence structure, transformational grammar will also attempt to explore the thought behind the words. Sometimes referred to as TG grammar, transformational grammar attempts to apply logic to the task of looking into the deeper meanings of the structure of sentences, and to analyze both the surface and the underlying intent of the words used. This means employing more than just a visual approach to the words that make up the sentence. Syntax also plays a role in the logical process of transformational grammar, as will context. To a degree, transformational grammar will call upon most of the tools of linguistics in an attempt to fully analyze the spoken or written word. One of the main proponents of the idea of transformational grammar was Noam Chomsky. During the middle portion of the 20th century, Chomsky worked to develop a logical approach to analyzing the syntax of structural grammar within the setting of the English language. As a result of his efforts, Chomsky developed and promoted the concept of grammar as being a broader theory regarding language structure, rather than simply defining a method for developing the structure for sentences. This approach had been inherent for centuries in the broader concepts of universal grammar. But due to the work of Chomsky,

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linguists and grammarians began to understand transformational grammar as a discipline all its own. People engage in the task of approaching grammar from a transformational approach every day. In some cases, it is a matter of employing transformational grammar as a means of comprehending a grouping of words within the setting or context, rather than focusing on the actual structure of the words. At other times, the idea of transformational grammar is utilized as a means of conveying more than one meaning. The double-entendre may be thought of as a limited example of transformational grammar, as the device provides both a surface and a hidden conveyance of ideas. 3.6. Functional / systemic grammar A different kind of syntactic analysis is that provided by Functional grammar. A functional grammar is one which seeks to derive syntactic structures from the functions which language is said to perform. All syntactic analyses take some account of functional categories. Terms such as subject and object, for example, are of this type. Functional grammar, however, attempts to discriminate, with a greater degree of delicacy, between different types of subjects and objects and relate these to semantic possibilities within the language. In essence, the development of this kind of grammar was a reaction to the more abstract approaches associated with Chomskyan transformational grammar. The concern of functional linguists is with language as a system of meanings, rather than as an abstract code. They pursue the interactive and communicative aspects of language. Arguably the most influential of these linguists is the British linguist Michael Halliday, whose systemic functional model is widely used in stylistics and discourse analysis. Halliday sees language as a sophisticated tool for accomplishing a number of central functions such as the need to represent the world to ourselves and others, and the need to interact with other humans. What he attempts to do is to map these functions onto language. Instead of simply analyzing a sentence in terms of the phrases which comprise it, he is more concerned with the semantic role the phrases play in the communication of meaning. Sentences don’t just contain subjects, and objects, but participants, each of which can be assigned a specific role, such as actor, or goal.

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And verbs can be distinguished in terms of the processes they encode, whether action ones, such as running, and jumping, or mental ones, such as thinking and feeling. In this way he establishes a link between language as a code and language as a human tool. Halliday’s model of language is sometimes called systemic grammar. In simple terms this means that he sees language as a semantic system, i.e. a system for expressing meanings. At every point of the system a user is offered a series of choices which are both syntactic and semantic. The context within which these choices are made consists of three overarching functions which language is said to fulfil: (i) the ideational function: the use we make of language to conceptualise the world. This function emphasizes language as an instrument of thought, a symbolic code, with which we represent the world to ourselves. (ii) the interpersonal function: the use we make of language as a personal medium. This function emphasizes language as an instrument of transaction by which we represent ourselves to others. (iii) the textual function: the use we make of language to form texts, whether spoken or written. This function emphasizes language as an instrument of communication with which we construct cohesive and coherent sequences. According to Halliday, these functions relate to three central purposes which govern the form which clauses take. Clauses act as a representation (ideational function), an exchange (interpersonal function), and a message (textual function). Halliday’s procedure is to take each of these in turn and describe the choices open to native users of the language. (i) The clause as representation: This sees the clause as a means of representing the experiential world. As such, it is composed of three functional components: participant, process and circumstance. The ‘participant’ function incorporates subjects and objects; ‘process’ incorporates the verb element; and ‘circumstance’ incorporates adjuncts/ adverbials. Centrally important in Halliday’s model is the process component. It is this which largely determines the types of participants which are possible. Halliday refers to this as ‘the system of transitivity’ and distinguishes six main processes: (i) material processes; (ii) mental processes; (iii) relational processes; (iv) behavioural processes; (v) verbal processes; (vi) existential processes. 43

(ii) The clause as exchange: This sees the clause as an interpersonal medium. Principally important here is mood, that is the relationship speakers forge with listeners through the form of the language. Traditionally, sentences are classified as declarative, interrogative, imperative, and subjunctive. These forms correspond to some of the speech acts which we use language to accomplish. (iii) The clause as message: The message function of clauses is connected very much with their formation structure. Functional linguists characteristically distinguish between theme and rheme, or alternatively, topic and comment. The theme of a clause is its first major constituent, as in John has done his homework. The theme is the starting point of the clause and it is sometimes referred to as the ‘psychological subject’. The rheme, or comment, is simply the remainder of the clause after the theme. Its typical use is to expand on the theme and provide more information. Theme and rheme overlap with another pair of terms, given and new. 3.7. Other theories Government and binding is a theory of syntax in the tradition of transformational grammar developed principally by Noam Chomsky in the 1980s. This theory is a radical revision of his earlier theories and was later revised in The Minimalist Program (1995) and several subsequent papers, the latest being Three Factors in Language Design (2005). Although there is a large literature on government and binding theory which is not written by Chomsky, Chomsky's papers have been foundational in setting the research agenda. The name refers to two central subtheories of the theory: government, which is an abstract syntactic relation, and binding, which deals with the referents of pronouns, anaphors, and referential expressions. GB was the first theory to be based on the principles and parameters model of language, which also underlies the later developments of the Minimalist Program. 3.7.1. Government theory The main application of the government relation concerns the assignment of case. Government is defined as follows: A governs B if and only if 44

•

A is a governor and

•

A m-commands B and

•

no barrier intervenes between A and B.

Governors are heads of the lexical categories (V, N, A, P) and tensed I (T). A mcommands B if A does not dominate B and B does not dominate A and the first maximal projection of A dominates B. The maximal projection of a head X is XP. This means that for example in a structure like the following, A m-commands B, but B does not m-command A:

In addition, barrier is defined as follows: A barrier is any node Z such that •

Z is a potential governor for B and

•

Z c-commands B and

•

Z does not c-command A

The government relation makes case assignment unambiguous. The tree diagram below illustrates how DPs are governed and assigned case by their governing heads:

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3.7.2.Binding Theory Binding can be defined as follows: •

An element α binds an element β if and only if α c-commands β, and α and β corefer.

Consider the sentence "Johni saw hisi mother." which is diagrammed below using simple phrase structure rules.

The NP "John" c-commands "his" because the first parent of the NP, S, contains "his". "John" and "his" are also coreferential (they refer to the same person), therefore "John" binds "his".

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On the other hand, in the ungrammatical sentence "The mother of Johni saw himselfi", "John" does not c-command "himself", so they have no binding relationship despite the fact that they corefer.

The importance of binding is shown in the grammaticality of the following sentences: 1. *Johni saw him. 2. Johni saw himself.

3. *Himself saw John. 4. *John saw John. Binding is used, along with particular binding principles, to explain the ungrammaticality of those statements. The applicable rules are called Binding Principle A, Binding Principle B, and Binding Principle C. •

Principle A: an anaphor (reflexive or reciprocal, such as "each other") must be bound in its governing category (roughly, the clause).

Since "himself" is not c-commanded by "John" in sentence , Principle A is violated. •

Principle B: a pronoun must be free (i.e., not bound) within its governing category (roughly, the clause).

In sentence [1], "him" is bound by "John", violating Principle B. •

Principle C: an R-expression must be free (i.e., not bound). R-expressions (e.g. "the dog" or "John") are referential expressions: unlike pronouns and anaphora, they independently refer, i.e., pick out entities in the world.

In sentence [4], the first instance of "John" binds the second, violating Principle C. 47

Note that Principles A and B refer to "governing categories"--domains which limit the scope of binding. The definition of a governing category laid out in Lectures on Government and Binding is complex, but in most cases the governing category is essentially the minimal clause or complex NP. 3.7.3. X-bar theory is a component of linguistic theory which attempts to identify syntactic features presumably common to all those human languages that fit in presupposed (1965) framework. It claims that among their phrasal categories, all those languages share certain structural similarities, including one known as the "X-bar", which does not appear in traditional, for inter alia natural English language, phrase structure rules. X-bar theory was first proposed by Chomsky (1970) and further developed by Jackendoff (1977). The letter X is used to signify an arbitrary lexical category; when analyzing a specific utterance, specific categories are assigned. Thus, the X may become an N for noun, a V for verb, an A for adjective, or a P for preposition. The term X-bar is derived from the notation representing this new structure. Certain structures are represented by X (an X with an overbar). Because this is difficult to typeset, this is often written as X′, using the prime symbol. In English, however, this is still read as "X bar". The notation XP stands for X Phrase, and is equivalent to X-bar-bar (X with a double overbar), written X″, usually read aloud as X double bar. There are three "syntax assembly" rules which form the basis of X-bar theory. These rules can be expressed in English, as rewrite rules for natural language (useful for example for programmers in field of NLP-natural language processing, or visually as parse trees. All three representations are presented below. 1. An X Phrase consists of an optional specifier and an X-bar, in any order: XP → (specifier), X′ XP / \ spec

XP or X'

/ \ X' spec

2. One kind of X-bar consists of an X-bar and an adjunct, in either order:

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(X′ → X′, adjunct) Not all XPs contain X′s with adjuncts, so this rewrite rule is "optional". X'

X'

/\

or

/\

X' adjunct

adjunct X'

3. Another kind of X-bar consists of an X (the head of the phrase) and any number of complements (possibly zero), in any order: X′ → X, (complement...) X'

X'

/\

or

X complement

/\ complement X (a head-first and a head-final example showing one

complement) The following diagram illustrates one way the rules might be combined to form a generic XP structure. Because the rules are recursive, there is an infinite number of possible structures that could be generated, including smaller trees that omit optional parts, structures with multiple complements, and additional layers of XPs and X′s of various types. XP /\ spec X' /\ X' adjunct /\ X complement |

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head Because all of the rules allow combination in any order, the left-right position of the branches at any point may be reversed from what is shown in the example. However, in any given language, usually only one handedness for each rule is observed. The above example maps naturally onto the left-to-right phrase order used in English. Note that a complement-containing X' may be distinguished from an adjunctcontaining X' by the fact that the complement has an X (head) as a sister, whereas an adjunct has X-bar as a sister. The noun phrase "the cat" might be rendered like this: NP / \ Det N' | | the N | cat The word the is a determiner (specifically an article), which at first was believed to be a type of specifier for nouns. The head is the determiner (D) which projects into a determiner phrase (DP or DetP). The word cat is the noun phrase (NP) which acts as the complement of the determiner phrase. More recently, it has been suggested that D is the head of the noun phrase. Note that branches with empty specifiers, adjuncts, complements, and heads are often omitted, to reduce visual clutter. The DetP and NP above have no adjuncts or complements, so they end up being very linear. In English, specifiers precede the X-bar that contains the head. Thus, determiners always precede their nouns if they are in the same noun phrase.

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CONCLUSIONS Syntax is the study of the part of the human linguistic system that determines how sentences are put together out of words. Syntactic rules in a grammar account for the grammaticality of sentences, and the ordering of words and morphemes. Syntax involves our knowledge of structural ambiguity our knowledge that sentences may be paraphrases of each other our knowledge of the grammatical function of each part of a sentence, that is, of the grammatical relations. It is also concerned with speakers' ability to produce and understand an infinite set of possible sentences. The sentence is regarded the highest-ranking unit of grammar, and therefore the purpose of a grammatical description is to define, making use of whatever descriptive apparatus that may be necessary (rules, categories, etc). The traditional approach to syntactic function identifies constituents of the sentence, states the part of speech each word belongs to, describes the inflexion involved, and explains the relationship each word related to the others. According to its relation to other constituents, a constituent may serve certain syntactic function in a clause.

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Syntax is seen to be a fundamental principle for encoding and decoding meaning and is the part of grammar shared by speakers and listeners in communication. The last chaper of my dissertation is of upmost importance since it synthesizes the most important theories and approaches to syntactic analysis in the 20th century. In 1957, the American linguist Chomsky proposed the transformational generative grammar (TG), thus providing a model for the description of human languages. The goal of TG is to find out a system of rules to account for the linguistic competence of native speakers of a language to form grammatical sentences. It is called "transformational-generative" grammar because it attempts to do two things: to provide the rules that can be used to generate grammatical sentences how basic sentences can be transformed into either synonymous phrases or more complex sentences. Abstract ‘syntactic representation’ posited to explain the way in which actual sentences are interpreted Visiting aunts can be boring John is eager to please John is easy to please Flying planes can be dangerous Surface structure is the actually produced structure. Directly observable actual form of sentences as they are used in communication. The relationship between deep structure and surface structure is that of transformation. Since the relationship is usually a complicated one, we can best use transformational rules in the total process of relating deep structure to surface structures. If we were to attempt to extend phrase structure grammar to cover the entire language directly, we would lose the simplicity of the limited phrase structure grammar and of the transformational development. This approach to syntactic analysis is not appreciable. Chomsky in `Syntactic Structures' observes that "notions of phrase structure are quite adequate for a small part of the language and that the rest of the language can be derived by repeated application of a rather simple set of transformations to the strings given by the phrase structure grammar. Thus "Transformational Generative Grammar" was introduced. The name suggests that there are two aspects of this theory. The grammar that it provides is both

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`transformational' and `generative'. These two aspects are not logically dependent upon each other, though the theory gains plausibility from the interaction of the two.

REFERENCES Aarts,Bas.2001. English Syntax and Argumentation.2nd edition.Palgrave Bloomfield, Leonard. 1933. Language. Henry Holt. Brown, Keith and Miller, Jim. 1996. Syntax: A Linguistic Introduction to Sentence Structure. London: Routledge. Croitoru, Elena.2002. The English Sentence Structure. Galati.Ed. fundatiei „Dunarea de Jos” Crystal, David. 1985. Linguistics. Second Edition. Penguin Books Chomsky, Noam. 1965. Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press Chomsky, Noam. 1957. Syntactic Structures. The Hague: Mouton. Finch, Geoffrey. 2000. Linguistic Terms and Concepts. Palgrave Macmillan Finch, Geoffrey. 2003. How to Study Linguistics. A Guide to Understanding Language. 2nd 53

ed. Palgrave Macmillan Fromkin, Victoria & Rodman, Robert. 1998. An Introduction to Language. 6th Ed, New York: Thomson Heinle J. Fodor and T. Bever. 1965 “The Psychological Reality of Linguistic Segments,” Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior Hallyday , M. A. K. 1985. An Introduction to Functional Grammar. Edward Arnold Quirk, R. 1985. A Comprehensive Grammar of English Language Lyons, J. 1968. Introduction to Theoretical Linguistics. Cambridge CUP Lamb, S. 1966. Outline of Stratificational Grammar Poole, C. Stuart. 1999. An Introduction to Linguistics. Hampshire: Palgrave. Murar, I.2006. Master Reader. New Theories in Linguistics. Craiova. Tipologia Universitatii Radford, A. 1992.Transformational Grammar, Cambridge Univ. Press, Great Britain

REZUMAT/SUMMARY Sintaxa este studiul sistemului lingvistic uman care determină modul în care sunt puse împreună propoziţii din cuvinte. Cuvântul sintaxa este utilizat în lingvistică cu două sensuri. În primul rând, se referă la o ramură a lingvisticii (sau gramatica), care studiază unităţile de comunicare, structura lor şi funcţia, iar în al doilea rând sintaxă este un ansamblu de fenomene lingvistice care sunt implicate în construirea şi utilizarea unităţilor de comunicare. Putem vorbi de lingvistică ca un domeniu definit de studii doar de la începutul secolului al XIX-lea . Toate fenomenele lingvistice nu au găsit încă reflecţii în domeniul lingvisticii moderne, reflecţii care ar fi fără echivoc şi care corespund cu realitatea. Lingvistică cuprinde mai multe teorii distincte, abordări şi puncte de vedere. Ele diferă mai mult sau mai puţin unele de altele. Acest lucru este valabil mai ales pentru sintaxă, una dintre ramurile cele mai recente ale lingvisticii.

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În sintaxa modernă, deşi schematic, două abordări principale pot fi distinse: sintaxa tradiţională şi structurale (sau structuralistică). Ambele abordări principale ale sintaxei, tradiţionale şi structurale, continuă să se dezvolte în continuare, fundamentele teoretice ale acestora sunt definite mai precis, iar materialul cu privire la dezvoltarea limbii este mărit. Prin urmare, pentru moment, nu este logic să se adopte doar una dintre ele şi respinse celelalte. Există motive să ne aşteptăm că realizările din cele două abordări vor fi unite în viitor. Sintaxă, pur şi simplu, este aranjamentul gramatical al fiecărui element al unei propoziţii. Principala preocupare este asigurarea coerenţei subiectului, verbului şi complementului, precum şi relaţiile pe care le leagă împreună. Implică o succesiune logică, este cadrul de la care aţi construi propoziţii corect. Fiecare cuvânt pe care îl folosim în limbajul nostru are un sens. Când avem un şir de cuvinte care împreună formează o propoziţie, obiectivul este ca propoziţia completă să retransmită un anumit mesaj. Cum aceste cuvinte sunt aranjate şi prezentate sunt dictate de obicei de sintaxă. Cititorul care se uită la aceste cuvinte aranjate, foloseşte sintaxa pentru a determina ce înseamnă, de asemenea. Fără o structură a sintaxei, nu există nici un mod de a pune cuvintele împreuna pentru a forma o teză - ele nu ar face nici un sens, oricum. Sintaxa este considerată a fi un principiu fundamental pentru codarea şi decodarea sensului şi este parte a gramaticii împărtăşite de vorbitori şi ascultători în comunicare. În 1957, lingvistul american Chomsky propune Gramatică de Transformare (TG), oferind astfel un model pentru descrierea limbi umane. Scopul Tgului este de a afla un sistemul de norme care să ţină seama de competenţele lingvistice ale vorbitorilor nativi de limba pentru a forma propoziţii gramaticale. Este numită “gramatica- transformaţională”, deoarece încearcă să facă două lucruri: să s prevadă reguli care pot fi folosite pentru a genera propoziţii gramaticale de bază, cum fraze poate fi transformate fie în fraze sinonime sau propoziţii mai complexe.

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