4.3 The Generative Approach 1. Transformational Generative Grammar (TG 转换生成语法) Noam Chomsky is its founder. He proposed that any language has two levels of structures: deep and surface structure; and the surface structure is derived from the deep structure.

Chomsky has changed his theory over the years Chomsky has changed his theory over the years. The most well-known version was published in his book Aspects of the Theory of Syntax in 1965. It is often referred to as the Aspects Model or Standard Theory. This model consists of four main parts: a. The base component, which produces or generates basic syntactic structures called deep structures. b. The transformational component, which changes or transforms these basic structure into sentences called surface structures. c. the phonological component, which gives sentences a phonetic representation so that they can be pronounced. d. the semantic component, which deals with the meaning of sentences.

2. Surface structure & deep structure E.g. (1) John expected mother to bring a present. (2) John persuaded mother to bring a present. (3) John expected that mother would bring a present. (4) *John persuaded that mother would bring a

Surface structure & deep structure (5) John expected mother to bring a present. What about the second sentence structure?

Case study 1 Will the train arrive? The deep structure: the train will arrive. S NP VP Det. N infl. V the train will arrive

Question 2 How to draw the tree diagram of the following sentence? Will the train arrive?

The Transformation The surface structure for the question pattern formed by applying the inversion transformation is be given below. The surface structure: Will the train arrive? Will the train __________ arrive?

3. Phrase structure rules A certain word can only concur with certain other words. There must be certain grammatical mechanism that ensures the appropriate positions that specifiers, heads, and complements occupy in phrase structures. Such special type of grammatical mechanism that regulates the arrangement of elements that make up a phrase is called a phrase structure rule.

The phrase structure rule for NP, VP, AP and PP can be written as follows: NP →(Det) N (PP) … VP → (Qual) V (NP)… AP → (Deg) A (PP) … PP → (Deg) P (NP) …

Two levels Whether formed of one or more than one word, they consist of two levels, phrase level and word level as examplified below. NP VP AP PP ← phrase level ∣ ∣ ∣ ∣ N V A P ← word level

Word-level Phrase level N=noun A=adjective V=verb P=preposition Det=determiner Adv=adverb Conj=conjunction Qual=qualifier NP=noun phrase AP=adjective phrase VP=verb phrase PP=preposition phrase S=sentence or clause

Three elements in phrase structure Phrases that are formed of more than one word usually contain the following elements: head, specifier and complement. The word around which a phrase is formed is termed head. The words on the left side of the heads are said to function as specifiers. The words on the right side of the heads are complements.

4.Phrase structure (NP,VP, PP,AP) Specifier head complement

two  dogs     Spe. Head (NP) My brother can drink wine. Head com. (NP) Swimming in the lake is fun. Head com. (PP) The pepper was hot beyond endurance. Head com. (PP) Miss Hebert believes that she will win. Head com. (clause)

5. The S rule The S rule: S → NP + VP S NP VP V NP Det N Det N A boy found the evidence

XP rule In all four phrases, the specifier is attached at the top of level to the left of the head while the complement is attached to the right. These similarities can be summarized with the help of the template below, in which X stands for the head N, V, A or P. XP Specifier X complement The XP rule: XP → (specifier) X (complement)

6. Sentence Structure Three elements in a sentence Many linguists nowadays believe that sentences, like other phrases, also have their own heads. They take an abstract category inflection (dubbed ‘Infl’) as their heads, which indicates the sentence’s tense and agreement. Like other phrases, Infl. takes an NP (the subject) as its specifier and a VP category as its complement. According to this idea, sentences have the same internal structures as other phrases and are consistent with the XP rule .

The structure of S can be depicted as below. InflP(=S) NP VP Infl

Sentence head---infl position can be taken by an abstract category encoded in a verb which indicates the sentence’s tense or an auxiliary as shown below. Infl realized by a tense label Inlfp(=S) NP VP Infl NP Det N V Det N Pst A boy found the book

Infl position realized by an auxiliary InflP(=S) NP VP Det N Infl V NP Det N A boy will find the book

7. T-rules Common transformational rules (T-rules for short) in English including deletion, copying, addition, and reordering. a. John kissed Jane. b. Jane was kissed by John.

The organization of the syntactic component of the grammar can be depicted below. The XP Rule DEEP STRUCTURE Transformations SURFACE STRUCTURE

How to deal with the followings 1. Will the train arrive? 2. Birds do fly 3. Do Birds fly. 4. Who won the game? 5. What languages can you speak? 6. what can you talk about? 7. She has finally found the man whom she loves.

8. Transformations Complement clause （shortened as CP 补语短语) E.g. Miss Hebert believes that she will win. 1. Words which introduce the sentence complement are termed complementizer (shortened as Cs补语化成分), such as “that” in the sentence above. 2. The sentence introduced by the complementizer is called complement clause (补语从句） 3. thus the whole italicized part in the above sentence is called a complement phrase (CP)

Auxiliary movement E.g Will the train arrive? Two steps for the transformation of the yes-no question Step 1: the usual XP rule is used to form a structure in which the auxiliary occupies its normal in Infl, between the subject and the VP. E.g Will the train arrive?

The deep structure: the train will arrive. NP VP Det N infl V the train will arrive

Step 2：a transformation is required: in the case we considering, a transformation known as inversion moves the auxiliary from the Inlf position to a position to the left of the subject, which can be formulated as follows. Inversion: Move Infl to the left to the subject NP The position the auxiliary occupies is the same as the position that a complementizer occupies. This naturally prompts us to assume that all Ss occur within larger CPs, whether they are embedded or not.

CP C S NP VP Det N Infl V the train will arrive

Inversion (revised)： Move Infl to C Symbol e & Trance: The auxiliary “will” retains its Infl label even though it is moved into the C position, and the position that is formerly occupied remains in the tree structure. Marked by the symbol e (‘empty’) and called trance, it records the fact that the moved element comes from the head position within S as shown below.

CP C S NP VP Infl Det N Infl V Will the train e arrive

Do insertion E.g 1. Birds flied 2. Birds fly 3. Do birds fly? Insert interrogative do into an empty Inlf position CP CP C S C S NP Infl VP NP Infl VP N Pst V N V birds flied birds do fly

Wh movement E.g. 1. What languages can you speak? 2. What can you talk about? Deep structures 1a. you can speak what languages 2a. you can talk about what

Wh Movement Wh Movement Move the wh phrase to the beginning of the sentence. To convert the deep structures into the corresponding surface structures, we need a transformation that will move the wh phrase from its position in deep structure to a position at the beginning of the sentence. This transformation is called Wh Movement.

By applying Wh Movement and inversion to the deep structure, we can form the desired question structure below. What languages can you _____ speak_____? inversion Wh Movement What can you ______ talk about _______?

E. g. Who won the game? CP C S NP NP Infl VP N Pst V NP det N Who e won the game

E.g. She has finally found the man whom she loves The deep structure: She has finally found the man she loves who The surface structure: She has finally found the man whom she loves __ Wh Movement

CP C S VP NP NP AdvP C S NP Infl VP N Infl Adv V Det N N V NP N She has finally found the man she loves who

CP C S VP NP NP AdvP C S NP NP Infl VP N Infl Adv V Det N N V NP N She has finally found the man whom she loves e

Practice A frightened passenger landed the crippled airplane. Draw the tree structure for the sentence containing modifiers. A frightened passenger landed the crippled airplane.