Lia Aftanty / 21202241042 / PBI B
Summary of Transformational Grammar
We called tranformational grammar because we can create an infinite number of
sentences that we’ve never seen or heard before with a finite set of words and rules. Sentences
are generated by subconscious procedures or rules. These procedures are thought of as
transformations of basic structures. That’s why generative grammar is also called
transformational grammar or transformational generative grammar.
A. Generative Grammar
Sentences are generated by subconscious procedures or rules. These procedures are
thought of as transformations of basic structures. That’s why generative grammar is also called
transformational grammar or transformational generative grammar. Chomsky argued that the
methods which were being used to describe languages on the syntactic level were inadequate (or
at least intolerably clumsy), and proposed a new grammatical model to replace them.
By Harris, this model had been called as a transformation. According to Harris, two
sentences which are of a quite different pattern can be transformationally related if the same
lexical items co-occur in both.
For examples:
- dog - cat - kill
The cat killed the dog ← → the dog was killed by the cat
- man - biscuit - eat
The man ate the biscuit ← → the man who ate the biscuit
- Mary - make - cake
Mary made a cake ← → the cake which Mary made
Given such a chain, Chomsky's basic contribution is to single out one of the transforms (in
this case Mary made the cake), and successively derive from it all the rest. Such a derivative (or
generative) relationship is symbolised by (→): thus, to return to an earlier example, the cat
killed the dog → the dog was killed by the cat. Transforms singled out in this way Chomsky
refers to as kernel sentences.
Both Chomsky and Lees maintain that no analyst need set out mechanical procedures for
arriving at his results. But the fact that no mechanical explanation can be given for a series of
decisions does not necessarily mean that no explanation need be given at all, and it would be
